YOU got the sense on Thursday that the opening night of Holy Holy’s national single tour for Faces marked a turning point for the indie rockers.
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A quick survey of the densely-filled Cambridge Hotel revealed a room of fresh, new faces, and decidedly more women than past Newcastle shows. A hit new single has that kind of stroke.
Undoubtedly Holy Holy’s shift in direction from their previous classic-rock stylings towards the use of loops and syncopated vocals on Faces has broadened their appeal.
Despite being only two months old, the driving track was the crowd favourite. Holy Holy’s Tim Carroll and Oscar Dawson are onto a winner there.
It didn’t hurt that Lily and Grace Richardson, from the support act Clews, provided their charming vocals to Faces’ hypnotic ’70s R’n’B loop.
On the strength of Clews’ earlier set, expect to hear plenty from the Mollymook-bred sisters.
Their brand of candied-grunge harks back to Veruca Salt at their most accessible – bright, harmonic and with enough serrated edge to remain exciting.
Former Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine and Bruce Springsteen producer Nick DiDia worked on their latest single Crushed, so Clews are one to watch.
Holy Holy eased their audience into the performance with Dawson’s left-handed guitar theatrics taking centre stage on older tracks You Cannot Call For Love Like A Dog and Willow Tree, before they introduced the first cut off their third album, which is still in production.
The song called You Think was drenched in heavy reverb and propelled along with a driving bass line. But as Carroll revealed to the Herald last week, it was relatively absent of guitar.
It was the weaker of the new songs, which also included a feverish performance of Faces and a synth-soaked track, which Carroll said was tentatively called Darling.
The triple j Like A Version cover of Beyonce’s Hold Up was met with rapturous applause and offered another clue to the direction Holy Holy are preparing to take fans on album No.3.
Older fans who once fawned over Dawson’s epic guitar solos might be grizzling about Holy Holy’s directional change, but it’s clear they’re likely to be replaced with interest by a younger fan base.