There is something charmingly crude about Truly Holy’s latest EP, beatrix83. Not in the sense of being crass, mind, but more that it has edges yet to be shaved off. Handprints have been deliberately left all over the clay; strange misshapes that are yet to be filed down.
Each song seems designed to negate itself. Lush guitar work sits at odds to the neutered, almost bored vocal work; icy instrumentals turn into grating, nightmarish bouts of industrial rhythm; and lyrics deal primarily with contrasts, fluctuating between images of great beauty and muttered demands.
Of course, this contrarian brand of roughness means the record is slightly one-note, and the tone established by lead track The Pond remains largely untouched throughout. Truly Holy pick a single point on the horizon and run towards it, but their dogged determination could also be interpreted as a kind of artistic bravery.
Certainly, they are nothing if not original. The EP’s sprawling, eight minute title track has a searing, sloppy energy entirely of its own, while the similarly lengthy closer There Is A Rhythm combines touches of sun-blasted Australian gothic with jazzy solos.
Unique and colossal, beatrix83 is a lurching, bow-legged giant of a record; one that practically demands witnesses.
BY JOSEPH EARP
