Holy Boy’s self-titled debut EP effortlessly captures the listener’s attention and unveils a new perspective on love. Its mystical, dark atmosphere quickly evokes a whole array of emotions, triggering deep thoughts in the process.
This ambiance is mostly due to the elaborate use of the singer’s vocals – often blurry, sometimes isolated, but definitely chaotic – they create an interesting sound and confidently shift the focus of the listener. Her voice closely resembles that of Of Monsters and Men’s singer Nanna, as she carefully pronounces every word yet gives a vulnerable feel to them. Instrumentals, on the other hand, are much less elaborated; despite adding to the overall feel of the EP, they remain very simple.
The strong suit of all songs, however, are definitely the lyrics. Mostly love-related, they give off a hint of a recent break-up, or a least a similar experience. Unlike most pop songs, these words don’t overly romanticize broken hearts and crushed dreams, nor do they provide those typical placebo answers for coping with pain – in fact, they do the exact opposite as they raise the many questions that follow heartbreaks, mostly dealing with understanding life from an existentialist perspective. Using a lot of classic and often biblical symbols in a different way, they provoke new thoughts about all those familiar big questions that have been asked throughout time. Oxymorons are crucial here and are widely used in all songs, creating a beautiful mess of vivid pictures and grand ideas that hit close to home.
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