holy fawn

Record #959: Holy Fawn – Realms (2015)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

When Holy Fawn’s Death Spells made them the It Band of 2019, they were given a lot of praise for being one of the best new bands in the scene.

Problem there is that they weren’t exactly new. In fact, they had released their first album four years prior. But Realms sat in relative obscurity—even as Death Spells gathered them new fans. It sat as a sort of curiosity on their Spotify page, failing to offer the same crushing heaviness as the record we all came for.

However, as their star has continued to rise—thanks to tours with the likes of Thrice and Deafheaven—more and more fans found their way back to their debut. And while it might indeed lack the moments of black metal catharsis they’ve come to be known for, their trademark dazzling atmospheres and lush sonics were already in full bloom.

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Record #883: Holy Fawn – Dimensional Bleed (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

It’s hard to tell whether social media and streaming have been a net positive or negative for music in general. On the one hand, anyone with an internet connection and the most basic recording setup can distribute their music onto the internet within minutes. But on the other hand, it’s relegated musicians to the roles of Content Creators, requiring them to keep releasing a constant stream of new music to keep their audience’s attention.

But somehow, Holy Fawn has more or less managed to escape that trap. Their 2018 full-length Death Spells still feels as fresh and hype-worthy as it did when it first exploded across the internet. There were some other releases in their catalog—a 2015 EP that no one really paid attention to (myself until recently), a three-track EP in early 2020, and a couple remixes and covers, but Death Spells has remained the standard bearer for the band—and the entire heavy, moody shoegaze scene since, it seems .

I say all of this to point out that we didn’t need another Holy Fawn record. But damn, am I glad we got it, because Dimensional Bleed is proof that the Arizona quartet can conjure lightning to strike at least twice.

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2019: A Year In Review

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 2 Comments

As we sit on the cusp of a new year—and a new decade—it’s become customary to look back and quantify all of the music produced into a neat little list of what’s noteworthy.

While these lists are always bound to vary from person to person and between publications, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so much variation as in 2019. This year was an undeniable banner year for music, with excellent release after excellent release piling up relentlessly without ceasing. If you slipped behind, there was no hope of catching up.

As I look back on the year, I keep being surprised by all the stuff I missed—either ubiquitous barn burners like Lizzo or Lana Del Ray’s NFR or artists I love like Solange and Deerhunter. Even among releases I loved and purchased, quantifying all of it into a top ten list proved a much more difficult task than most years.

And so, as much as I stand by this list, I’m fully aware how flawed a ranked top whatever format is for describing just how magnanimous this year’s musical output was.

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