Quick disclaimer: My record reviews are not genuine “reviews” in the sense that I don’t have an arbitrary scoring system and I don’t even try to come across as objective. Or even cohesive. I only write about things that I’m stoked on here, so you can expect that all my reviews will be just me gushing over the album and the band, and this review of Holo Boy by This is Lorelei is no different. Let’s get to it!
Holo Boy is a fun as hell album. Arriving just a year and a half after Box for Buddy, Box for Star, his successful, and excellent, debut(ish) album as This Is Lorelei, Nate Amos has built upon the recent momentum and his widening audience by compiling and re-recording 10 tracks out of hundreds that he wrote between 2014 – 2021. The result is an eclectic curated collection of catchy tunes that hops between different music genres and styles, showcasing his broad range of songcraft while maintaining a thematic consistency that feels like it could also have been written in a single burst of creativity.
Amos has an obvious talent for creating music that is clearly “indie” and authentic but also immediately catchy. While a lot of the lyrics appear to focus on darker themes of self-destructive behavior coupled with an honest self-awareness about it, the songs themselves come across as poppy and even playful. I don’t like the word “playful”, by the way. Feels creepy. But I’m not sure of a better word here. “Whimsical” or “Mercurial” aren’t really accurate, and I already used “fun” up there in the first paragraph, so I guess I’m screwed and have to stick with “playful.” Sorry to anyone else who hates that word.
The album starts off playfully (ah, goddamn) with “I Can’t Fall”, a chill psuedo-lounge style ditty that could be the soundtrack for a group of dudes in 70s-fashion overcoats walking into a restaurant through its backdoor, nodding to the staff as they wade through the busy kitchen, and to an open table where the restaurant owner stands, smiling, arms wide. “Fellas! Sit down, sit down!”
It then takes a hard left to a more poppy emo vibe in the second track, with an upbeat, stable rhythm riding alongside a chiming guitar that.. well.. sounds kind of like, “ding DING ding DING ding DING”. Know what I mean? Kinda similar to something you might hear on Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity. But you already picked up on that from my ding ding description, I’m sure.
Speaking of awkward sound descriptions, my wife and I were listening to another song from the album in the car, and she said, “This reminds me of that song by…um… the one that goes… um.. Da da…” Her “da da” was barely even audible since she was so unconfident about what song she was trying to think of, and she went silent after just those two “da da” notes. No idea what she was referring to, but I believe it was meant to be a positive comparison.
I won’t torture you with a track-by-track rundown since I couldn’t even get through the first two without running dry on decent descriptors and trying to distract from that with unnecessary anecdotes. But a couple other standouts are “My Friend 2” with Amos’s impressive guitar fingerwork reminiscent of the fine noodling you might hear on a Vampire Weekend album and clever lyrics about being banged up like, “I’m in your nightgown looking for a cold one.” And the first single from the album, “Star,” which plays like a stripped down indie rock version of a guitar-driven 80s rock mega hit. Think Evan Dando reinterpreting that “867-5309” song. Maybe. I don’t know. But it rules.
Then there’s my personal favorite, and probably yours too. “Mouth Man.” This song is a fuckin jam. I keep playing it on repeat. With pulsing beats and electronics that remind me of something you might hear on a Yeasayer record, it’s like a dance song playing at one of those cool dark indie dance clubs packed full of good looking young people back in the early 2000s. I’m not really qualified to make this statement since I didn’t frequent cool dark indie dance clubs back in my younger partying days because I wasn’t cool and couldn’t dance or be good looking.
I do recall going once, actually, but I was drunk and stupid and I took my shirt off and wrapped it around my head with my eyes looking through the shirt collar like it was a ninja mask, and I just karate kicked around the dance floor, flopping around, pale and scrawny and sweaty, naked from the waist up.
My wife also really likes the song and she was a frequenter of the dark indie dance clubs back in her younger days. I’m glad we didn’t meet each other back then, because I don’t think she’d have been impressed by my karate comedy and I likely would not be married today.
Oh that does remind me of another stupid karate dance hall story. Years ago my buddies and I were at a bar where a bunch of older folks were dancing to country music. One buddy was just standing there on the dance floor, nonchalantly sipping on a cocktail in a plastic cup. Out of nowhere another buddy appeared and karate kicked the drink out of the dude’s hand, and then proceeded to grab him by the ankles, flip him around and hold him upside down, and mop up the spilled drink with his back. That’s some bar room comedy brilliance that obliterates my crummy ninja slapstick.
Anyway, “Mouth Man” is an awesome song.
Ok, probably about time to wrap up this review, considering that I’ve done an abysmal job at actually reviewing the album. To briefly sum it up, Holo Boy is an energetic, loose and fun album of songs that run the gamut of musical styles without feeling chaotic or random, everything from electronic to indie piano ballads to old school guitar jams to early melodic emo. A highly enjoyable selection of tunes written throughout a near ten year span of creativity by Nate Amos back before he was receiving all the well-deserved public accolades of the past couple years, and re-recorded by him earlier this year in his New York apartment.
When you think about how good his previous album was, and you realize that all the songs from this new one were written before that, it’s clear that the dude has been a consistent and prolific talent for a long time already, and it’ll be a blast to discover what other weird and wonderful surprises he has for us in the upcoming years.
What are your thoughts on Holo Boy? Holo back at me in the comments.
(Totally kidding about that “holo back” line. It’s so shitty and unclever that I’m not going to delete it to teach myself a lesson.)
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