Holy Holy My Own Pool Of Light

Holy Holy’s third album sees guitarist Oscar Dawson and vocalist Timothy Carroll embracing various kinds of freedom: from the confines of the studio (recording locations included a shed on Carroll’s property in Tasmania and a room under a friend’s house); to improvise during the writing process; and from working mainly with guitars. Here, the duo embrace keys and synths more wholeheartedly than on previous albums, for instance in “Starting Line” and “Teach Me About Dying” (which features Ali Barter and Ainslie Wills on backing vocals), while experimentation takes centre stage in the pitch-shifted vocals of “Flight” and the drum loops and sampled beats heard throughout the record. Lyrically Carroll doesn’t waste a line, using his platform to focus on issues such as the perpetuation of gender stereotypes in daily life (“Frida”), depression and suicide (“Maybe You Know”) and the dehumanisation of asylum seekers (“Flight”), while drawing on the life of Melbourne transgender woman Sandra Pankhurst to explore the scourge of transphobia and homophobia (“Sandra”). Proof that a little creative freedom goes a long way.