Eye-wateringly young, dangerously rebellious, Holy Esque have arrived in a monumental way. Their debut self-titled EP is brimming with the sort of ambition that continues to make the music industry the leading entertainment outlet for the upcoming generations.
Formed in Glasgow at the start of 2011, the four-piece garage band describe themselves as a post-punk revival outfit. The influences are clear upon listening to the EP. The big, riveting riffs and distorted percussion invoke memories of all that was good about Echo and the Bunnymen.
Pay Hynes, the charismatic front man and guitarist lends a voice that can only be described as unique. Painfully tragic in its delivery, his unabashed take on the remorseful, thoughtful, eternally downtrodden indie lead singer is both refreshingly startling and startlingly refreshing.
Releasing a debut of this caliber sets a high standard for Holy Esque. Yet the oozing confidence and refined tome of their storytelling and musical ability belie the group’s comparative youth. The oldest barely out of his teens.
Stealing the show is ‘Loneliest Loneliness’, a tempered, brooding number that illicit images of abandoned dockyards and the forgotten dignity of a city and its people no struggling to cope with their reality. Not out of place on a post-punk album of twenty years past, it perfectly sums up Holy Esque’s ambitions and ode to an era in British music they were sadly born too late to experience first hand.
Yet where some bands would falter and sound like tributes to this era, Holy Esque are fueled by it. Their circumstances act as the fire that lights their defiant love for an altogether overlooked era of importance in this country’s musical history.
Teaming with a renowned producer has helped this band enormously. Kevin Burleigh, the man behind Glasvegas, has his influence all over this EP. To that end comes the one gripe of the work. Production values are therefore incredibly high for a group of this standing and relative new coming to the scene.
It is with this arsenal of an industry name that the band has garnered the media’s attention already. Heavily touted in the likes of NME, Holy Esque are being set up as Glasgow, and by extension Scotland’s, next top band.
Do they need this fanfare of endorsements bordering on megalomania? Only time can answer that question. The band’s talent is a firm foundation from which to launch. They will no doubt succeed beyond their wildest fantasies. The trick is to get in on the bottom floor.
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