Friday Full-Length: Holy Fingers, Holy Fingers II
Though begun as an instrumental trio, Baltimore’s Holy Fingers took shape as a four-piece when joined by guitarist/vocalist Tracey Buchanan sometime in 2015/2016. I’d love to be more specific, but to be honest with you I don’t know that much about the band. Dave Cannon, Theron Melchior (who wins the Most Metal Name prize for the week) and Josh Weiss would seem to have been jamming and playing live since at least 2011, if indeed it’s been those three the whole time, and in addition to early practice recordings that have since disappeared from the digital ether in which they once resided, they offered up the self-titled Holy Fingers sans-vocals in 2016. There are still some tapes available. I’m thinking about picking one up on principle.
But sometimes you find a band on the internet. My path to Holy Fingers II, which the band released on vinyl in 2018, was I guess straightforward enough. I follow Dave Heumann of Baltimore’s Arbouretum on Twitter — in addition to periodic music stuff and wry observationalism, he’s got a side gig selling fancy teas of various varieties and it’s interesting — and maybe a month ago or a few weeks or whatever it was, he was at an outdoor show somewhere around. He posted what he called a “scene report” for the gig, which showed families on blankets and chairs, a couple elderly people. I don’t know what the event was, but it was open to the public and it looked like an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon/evening if you enjoy stuff like, you know, outside and sunshine.
And playing over by what kind of looked like a barn was Holy Fingers, and they were tearing it up. Now, this was a cellphone video, shot from some distance away from the band, and I still watched it more than once and determined I needed to find out who was playing. The most natural thing to do was ask. Heumann very kindly informed that they were called Holy Fingers and I was off. Fewer than five minutes later I was digging into Holy Fingers II and kicking myself at that special angle I reserve for “how did I miss this”-style shaming. Needless to say, it’s a familiar bruise.
Holy Fingers II was recorded and mixed with Kevin Bernsten at Developing Nations Recording Studio — Bernsten recently helmed
the new Genocide Pact and apparently also builds guitars — and mastered by Pete Lyman at Infrasonic Sound (whose mastering discography includes Sum 41, Bad Brains, Weezer and Dr. Dre, among many, many others). It runs an unassuming 35 minutes and six tracks beginning with the relatively straightforward “The Trees Bowed Deeply and Roared” but offering an immediate sense of breadth upon which the rest of the offering seems only too happy to expand. As much as “Destroying Light” has a bluesy lumber in its intertwining guitar lines, its lyrics are less grounded and add to the post-Grace Slick vibe of the echo behind Buchanan.
Both cuts in the opening duo bring hooks of their own, but the direction Holy Fingers take is quickly headed outward, and “Eternaut” caps side A with duly ethereal presence in the guitar and a more patient, not-quite-moodier-but-not-quite-not landscape. It’s a slow, engrossing build over nearly the first three of the total seven minutes — it’s the longest track on the album — but it’s a journey well worth undertaking for more than just the payoff self-harmonies when they arrive, and one that continues to resonate as side B takes hold. Both “Born to Burn” and “Brittle Wings” hover short of seven minutes, and the fluidity of “Born to Burn” alone makes it a highlight, never mind the melody or airy drift of guitar and the mellow swing bringing just a bit of tension beneath. Enough to let the listener know the fuzzy surge is coming if they’re paying attention, and enough to hypnotize them so they’re not.
Riffier at the outset, “Brittle Wings” feels more declarative in its purpose, but is still able to bring about a forward motion into its own wash, with the vocals cutting through the swirl churning counter-clockwise and moving forward into the textured pastoralia of “Ceremony” itself, which is shorter at 5:20 but willfully broad in its reach and encompassing; weighted psychedelia that seems just to be taking off with the late arrival of a percussive underpinning that soon cuts to silence. Too soon? Maybe. I wouldn’t know from nothing where they might’ve otherwise been headed, but if they wanted to meander for, say, 15 or 20 minutes and extend that jam, after the rest of what they’ve done on Holy Fingers II to that point, my trust has certainly been earned. Maybe next time.
Which brings me to the next thing in the grand litany of information I don’t have about this band — what they’re doing now. Aside from playing that outdoor show that fortunately Heumann filmed a snippet of, and an earlier gig in April, there’s not much to tell from Holy Fingers‘ social media as to what’s been up lately. Of course, even if that info were there, it’s not like they would’ve spent the last 20 months on tour or anything, but if there’s material for a follow-up to this album — a kind of second debut as it is with the four-piece lineup — or any intentions toward recording or getting out now that it’s possible in some minor way, I simply don’t know.
My suspicion, given the fact that the group in some form or other has been around for a decade, is that if they were going to “hit the road,” as it were, it would’ve happened by now somewhere along the line of pre-2020 years. Fine. Further extrapolation tells me that they’re an act who, whatever they want to do, will do it on their own terms. Not every group is willing to pull off a significant lineup/structural revamp after a number of years together, for example, and just as Holy Fingers II finds its own place within heavy psychedelic blues, if they do decide to or have already decided to pursue the project further, it seems reasonable to expect that to happen where and when they see fit.
Fair enough. For today, I’m just glad I got to hear this record. I hope you are too.
Thanks for reading.
—
I was stuck, stuck, stuck on the above, for too long, this morning. Distractions of irrelevant and relevant press releases, putting up other posts, and so on, kept pulling me away. And something about that “familiar bruise” line felt too indulgent on my part. Especially as a standalone sentence. Voice in my head going, “Way to make it about yourself, dick.” It’s there in the spirit of honesty, but I can’t promise I won’t take it out before the post is live. Maybe just move it? I’ll see if I can live with that.
There. I guess that’s better.
All week, I slept late. I don’t think I got up before six once. It was kind of incredible. And with The Pecan in school all five days, I managed to get my shit done as much as I ever do before my brain turns to mush and I can’t work anymore and still have time to shower every day before the bus brought him home. You have to understand, this is amazing to me. If it sounds mundane, it is, but a luxuriousness of lifestyle with which I have not been acquainted in some time. Years.
Can’t say next week will be the same, but I’m glad to take what I got. Special thanks to The Patient Mrs. I woke up at seven-fucking-thirty this morning. Can you imagine? Sure, I missed posting that Weedpecker track on time, but no one seems any worse for the wear.
Next week I think I’m reviewing the Monolord record? Maybe that’s the week after and Blackwater Holylight is next week? One or the other. I’m also doing a FUNERAL premiere on Monday, which in my mind is worth the all-caps I just put it in given that band’s genre-defining legacy. Season of Mist hit me up for that this week and I restructured the whole week around it. I do not expect anyone who reads this site regularly to give a shit — death-doom stuff always seems to fall flat compared to other styles I post about — but hell, it’s important to me and it’s my site, so if I embarrass myself with a miniscule response on social media, at least it’s something I got to do once. Like that time I did a premiere for Slough Feg.
How about Kadavar and Elder, huh? That’ll be interesting.
Next week, I also turn 40 and might go to an indoor show in Connecticut. Curse the Son, Geezer and Kind. It’d be my first indoor gig “back” since the pandemic started and I’d like to be among friends.
On a more staggering note, I’ve been invited to go to Sweden next month and if that country opens its borders to US travelers on Nov. 1, I’m absolutely going to do so. Keeping fingers crossed and all that. The possibility seems unreal to me, and it might turn out to be exactly that.
I wish you a great and safe weekend. Please have fun, watch your head. Hydrate. I’ll be back Monday with that Funeral premiere and a bunch of news I’m already behind on.
Much love. Thanks for reading.
FRM.
Tags: Baltimore, Holy Fingers, Holy Fingers II, II, Maryland, Unsigned bands
