HOLYCHILD – The Shape of Brat Pop to Come (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 37:15 minutes | 849 MB | Genre: Pop Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Glassnote Entertainment Group LLC
Los Angeles brat-pop band, Holychild debut full-length album. The band comprised of Liz Nistico and Louie Diller. They met in college in 2011, have been writing music ever since and call their genre, brat pop. On their debut album The Shape Of Brat Pop to Come, Holychild takes on nothing less than the idea of power dynamics and inequality be it racial, social status, or gender-motivated. The beats are wild (thanks in no small part to Diller’s stint in Cuba studying Afro-Cuban drumming), and the tongues are placed firmly in cheek. Nistico assures that while their message is clear, it s not definitive. After all, we’re all humans, right? At the end of the day Holychild is about posing questions not providing answers.
Borrowing from the title of free jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman’s maverick 1959 classic The Shape of Jazz to Come, Los Angeles-based Holychild’s full-length debut, 2015’s The Shape of Brat Pop to Come, is an equally maverick, if considerably less jazz-oriented comment on the state of music in the 21st century. Centered around the duo of vocalist Liz Nistico and multi-instrumentalist Louie Diller, Holychild make bombastic, often campy electronic pop. Combining the punk-informed energy of similarly inclined duos like Sleigh Bells and Ting Tings with the snotty, hip-hop-informed, electro-clash posturing of Ke$ha, Holychild hit the sweet spot where mainstream hooks and wry, left-field humor intersect. Along with memorable hooks, Holychild also have eclectic musical tastes, drawing from such disparate if amenable genres as dancehall, old-school R&B, EDM, ’90s soul, and ’80s new wave. To these ends, cuts like the lead-off “Barbie Nation” and the winking “Nasty Girls” are addictive pop pills coated in sugary irony that work in a duplicitous fashion as both frothy commercial product and dark, literate commentary. On “Barbie Nation,” Diller coos “life” lessons to her future daughter set against gigantic synth “bwaws.” She sings, “I know you and me can make it far/’Cuz the Brat from Barbie Nation, we know pure elation.” Of course, all of this snarky witticism wouldn’t be as palatable were it not for the duo’s knack for crafting engaging songs. Ultimately, cuts like rhythmically militaristic “Running Behind” and the equally percussive “Plastered Smile,” as with most all of The Shape of Brat Pop to Come, prove to be infectious numbers that marry hummable Jackson 5 hooks with the rhyming energy of schoolyard jump rope songs.
Tracklist:
1-1. HOLYCHILD – Barbie Nation (03:20)
1-2. HOLYCHILD – Nasty Girls (03:15)
1-3. HOLYCHILD – Happy With Me (02:48)
1-4. HOLYCHILD – Tell Me How It Is (03:12)
1-5. HOLYCHILD – Running Behind (03:00)
1-6. HOLYCHILD – Money All Around (03:09)
1-7. HOLYCHILD – Monumental Glow (03:32)
1-8. HOLYCHILD – Plastered Smile (02:44)
1-9. HOLYCHILD – Best Friends (02:53)
1-10. HOLYCHILD – Diamonds On The Rebound (03:06)
1-11. HOLYCHILD – Regret You (02:56)
1-12. HOLYCHILD – U Make Me Sick (03:14)
