By Ljubinko Zivkovic, Rock At Night Amsterdam
Review: Holly Henderson – The Walls-Release date: February 10, 2023
Finely crafted pop, psych-tinged pop is a very specific craft. You need only to have a good melody line, but your songs have to have that touch so characteristic of psych rock/folk/whatever, meaning shifts in melody and tempo, with a specific set of instrumentation.
At the same time, it is one thing doing such music as a band, and completely, more complex, as a solo artist. That is why a high-quality singer songwriter psych pop album that stands out is so hard to achieve. Add to that being a relatively young musician that has come up with only an album or so.
Yet, Holly Henderson a 24-year old singer songwriter from Kent, England, had no fear to take such a musical road on her second album ‘The Walls.’ Oh, and what a great job she has done here!
While her debut album ‘Monday Green, was recorded in Los Angeles and had some great alternative pop there, ‘The Walls’ was recorded in a farmhouse in the English country side, and has that pastoral, psych-folk/pop atmosphere throughout that Henderson caches in full and with ease, as if she has that late sixties, early seventies psych pop/folk in her small finger.
Talking about the album, she notes: “Due to the intimacy of the songs, I wanted to preserve the organic nature of the words and the arrangements. The heart of every song was recorded live, from the front room of a farmhouse in Sevenoaks – everyone facing each other, hearing each other, and working together. The sounds you hear are preserved in the moment that they happened. Tentative and selective moments were never changed in post. The other-worldly elements, synths, sounds, etc, were still captured live.“
And yes, Henderson’s songs have both strong melody lines and excellent psych-tinged arrangements that make ‘The Walls’ such a great listen.
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