Holopaw

“The Art Teacher and the Little Stallion” is the first track on Oh, Glory. Oh, Wilderness, the third offering from Holopaw. The song introduces the character the Little Stallion who inhabits most of the songs to come. “Toy piano tinklings punctuate his every step” as we follow his coming of age. His journey is marked by lost sailors, boys on motorbikes, lazy matadors, hobbyists and foxes lurking in fake gas lamp light. The Little Stallion welcomes these characters, seduces them with “polished pearls” or is, in turn, seduced by their “horseplay, towel whips and bathing suits rolled down off sunless hips”. He falls in love with them and, more often than not, betrays them causing him to lament, “So many sailors lost to this drunken sea, so many sailors lost to me.” There is sweetness and grit, longing and potential violence. Holopaw musically plays with similar tensions: lulling strings are undercut by anxious guitars, lilting “la’s” turn sinister and demanding. In “Little Stallion with a Glass Jaw” horn blasts announce a charge that is quickly clipped to a hush. The bounce of “P-a-l-o-m-i-n-e” stumbles towards chaos at the bridge only to be righted by a whimsical Bay City Rollers-esque chant. The last song on the record, “The Hobbyist and the Conductor (Avalanche)” begins with bright, carillon chimes that stand in stark contrast to the thunderous din that ends the song like a slack jawed finale to a fireworks display. Triumphant “la’s” punch through the smoke and ash to have the final say. The band articulating these musical tensions is Holopaw’s strongest yet. The core songwriting team of John Orth and Jeff Hays has remained constant. The lineup has contracted and expanded in the swampy heat of Gainesville, Florida to now include Patrick Quinney, Matt Radick, Jeff McMullen, Christa Molinaro and Jody Bilinski. Throughout the record Pink Razor’s Erin Tobey lends sublime backing vocals and harmonies to buoy these otherwise troubled tales.