Holy Island
by Sister Ray Davies

From MadhattanJack 12/23/2025 00:14 | #312265

OK, I have issues here. First, these guys are from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and since nothing good comes from Alabama these days, a lot of people are going to pass this over for that reason alone. Meanwhile, the band name is an amalgamation indicating that they might sound like the Kinks and/or the Velvet Underground, but they don't. They actually sound like The Asteroid No. 4's recent shoegazer stuff, which admittedly is a far more obscure reference, but it's essentially "spacegaze" with some dreamy psychedelic influences. The Asteroid No. 4 is one of my favorite bands at the moment, but they didn't release an album in 2025, so this similarity is not just a good thing, it's an awesomely good thing! Still, the name remains misleading, and might cause other spacegaze fans to overlook them, which would be a tragedy. Also, the album and song titles clearly suggest this is a concept album about the Lindisfarne priory and/or castle (Holy Island in Northumberland is the real-world location of their ruins, and it's also the fictional setting for the recent movie "28 Years Later"), but you'd never know that from just listening to the record. Potential fans might even be misled into thinking they're influenced by English folk/prog band Lindisfarne, which they're not, and instead you end up with a driving spacegaze rock piece entitled... "Cloisters"? Well, okay... but hopefully they'll avoid some of the pretense on the next album — they don't need it!