Vagabond rock duo Holy Holy continues to hypnotise and enthral with the recent release of single Sentimental and Monday. After the howling hit that was You Cannot Fall For Love Like A Dog the track is the proverbial calm before the forthcoming album When The Storms Would Come due out July 24th. It is contemplative and composed while still providing the psychedelic solos and detailed layers that make up the pair’s signature sound.
We recently chatted to lead vocalist Tim Carroll about the song as he took a post tour break in Sweden, a place that inspired the lyrics when he was living there in 2011.
“That song has two broad themes that overlap,” he says “I arrived in Sweden and the winter was coming and I started noticing this collective societal preparation… In winter in Stockholm the sun might come up at 11 then it’s gone again by 3… So it’s just months and months of darkness. People tend to go a bit crazy. They tend to stay home a lot and so I was just witnessing this kind of, collective apprehension of the coming winter.”
One of the key lines in the song is the haunting refrain “this darkness is nothing but a lack of light” which has a poetic simplicity that captures this imagery well.
“I was picking up on all these different things people would say and I remember there was this old man who had noticed there was this certain type of bird that is around during the summer but when winter comes it flies south to South Africa, and we were walking down the street and he was saying “I think they left today” kind of like as the marker for the beginning of winter. I was noticing all these poetic things that were going around.”
In his writing on the album Carroll seamlessly melds together observations on the natural world with those of human nature. He gives us a taste of this with Sentimental and Monday as he explains the second theme of the song:
“When my wife and I were coming to leave Sweden, her family were not going to see her for a long time because we were so far away in Australia and I noticed a kind of similar apprehension and sadness about that oncoming departure of their daughter that they loved so much. So I kind of used that theme of the coming darkness to look at this idea of leaving a city behind and leaving people behind, and so the idea “this darkness is nothing but a lack of light” and the other key line in that song is “hearts will burn just as Autumn leaves will always turn” is about how a part of life and loving is that there is also loss and hard times in that. And that the light and shade of life and loving people is that you also lose things some times.”
It’s a beautiful contrast and one that carries the track along with a heartfelt delivery. You can hear that it means something to Carroll and when laid over the sleek guitars of writing partner Oscar Dawson it is just honey.
Holy Holy will appear at Splendour in the Grass before heading off on a national tour to celebrate the release of their much anticipated debut new album.
Check out the teaser for the album below and be sure to pre-order here.