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 Caught in the Carousel "There will be music despite everything"
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Hollands
Mother
Self-released
Peering over a "moustache skyline" the characters that narrate the six numbers on Hollands' Mother E.P. are drifters, grifters and con men with hearts full of holes. On the weaving and percussive "Air Conditioned Heart" the shifty protagonist taunts, "Suspend my license to practice medicine" but he seems to know that's never going to happen. Later when he proclaims he's "weeping like a willow on fire," it's more pyromania than self-immolation. Singer John-Paul Norpoth's narrators are chameleon-like, ("My teeth are white and yours are white") slipping in and out of the mainstream with magician-like mastery. The speaker of "Just Like Anyone" admits gleefully to "Telling lies to my priest/Making bread with your niece," while on "Lungs Of Steel" a man confesses darkly: "My best friend/He got lungs of steel/I hung them in the backyard/You can't find him here." The gentle, spry pop of "Jackie" is particularly winning, while the introspective "Dirty Rum" finds Norpoth expounding on the "trouble of a broken man." Aside from masterful songwriting and brilliant instrumentation, Hollands' other great strength is to shift, mid-song—and without warning—into new musical territory. At 3:33 "Air Conditioned Heart" turns into a gentle funk workout, while "Just Like Them" starts with a Pixies snarl, then morphs almost instantly into a folk rock number and then back again. "In the night/Sings the tales/You forgot," Norphoth sings. These songs are six reasons to go out in the darkness—six good reasons to remember.
—Alex Green
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