Holy Tears is a post-rock band hailing from San Diego California, comprising Alex Burtson on guitar, Greg Gerardi on bass, and Francis Winfield on drums. Their eleven-track self-titled debut album is now available for purchase through their Bandcamp site and we thought we should give it a look and see how it stacks up in a post-rock scene already crowded with dozens of amazing bands. Do Holy Tears do enough to stand out? Should genre fans give it a listen? Spoilers: yes, and yes.
Now, often when we talk about post-rock and especially instrumental post-rock, the terms “aural odyssey” or “sonic journey” often get bandied around when critics come to review an album, and it can conjure up images of pretentious, overblown, dirge-like music that seems to go on forever, or guitarists getting a little too carried away and near fellating their instruments in long, complicated, never-ending solos. (Not naming names, you know who you are.) Luckily there’s none of that here. Holy Tears instead offers a tempting tapas taster of songs that never overstay their welcome, with the longest track on the album, ‘Hanuman’ clocking in at a near criminally short (by post-rock standards) 4m 57s and the shortest, opening track ‘Deter’, is a flash in a pan at only 1m32s!
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Veering occasionally from post-rock into near-metal with tracks like ‘Nihilist’ and ‘Burst’ which invite comparisons to late-90’s/early 2000’s offerings such as Lostprophets, into longer, somewhat more complex tracks such as ‘Strike’ which trick you into thinking that they’re one thing before the band kicks things up mid-track. There’s something here for everyone, from the shoegaze fans who just want a vibe, to the folks who want something sharper and punchier, even sprinkling in a little prog-rock styling here and there to keep fans of the more trippy end of things happy.
This is an album that grabs you from the very first track with compelling melodies, glittering guitars and thumping bass lines. Fans of acts like pg.lost, BLEED you Fucking Skies and Royal Blood (their first two albums, anyway) will almost certainly find something here they like. For a debut album it’s slick and polished, with a maturity of composition that’s a delight for the ears. Holy Tears are a group that deserves to be listened to and we can’t wait to hear what they bring out next.
Holy Tears is available now on Bandcamp, and will be released on vinyl in April 2024.
