RFC Thinks You Should Know... Holdfast!

Holdfast - Mars/Why Can't I Feel Tonight

Usually, we post song links deep into a post, if not all the way at the bottom. But I don't think that's appropriate for this band. Holdfast don't have an exceptional story of triumph holding them together, there are no crazy, novel influences to be lauded in a press kit, nor does their sound inspire any vividly abstract descriptors to be thrown around. They do have, though, great songwriting and a shitload of talent. That's really all that matters, and it speaks for itself.

"Mars/Why Can I Feel Tonight?" unfolds in a
strange kind of way, steadily getting more and more thrilling until its final hook sucker punches you out of nowhere and you just know immediately that you're going to have to run it back another couple times. Holdfast are a five-piece band that came together this past year at DePaul University. How a band so new came to release music this self-assured becomes immediately apparent when you hear their on-record chemistry. At the forefront is singer Chris Ott's voice, engineered to make the other dudes at the Battle of the Bands feel like amateurs with a perfectly struck balance between feeling warmly familiar and distinctly compelling (like when Ott infrequently lets loose his secret weapon of a hoarse wail to punctuate passages, as if feverishly trying to use his body as a vessel to resurrect mid-90s Thom Yorke).

Holdfast are releasing their debut EP Like the Sun at a show at Reggie's Rock Club on January 1st, 2011 (like I said, these guys are pretty self-assured). You'd do yourself well to shake off that titanic hangover and make it to Reggie's that evening. As a music lover, what purer way to start off your year than going out to support a young local band of dudes who clearly love what they do and are pretty damn good at it?