Southampton Metalcore newcomers Our Hollow, Our Home set their sights on the UK metal scene and unleash a barrage of brutal breakdowns and crushing, anthemic vocals with their debut album ‘Hartsick’.
‘The Sea Will Sleep’ provides the perfect introduction, building slowly before erupting with a shattering breakdown which sets the best possible tone for what’s to come. Vocalist Connor Hallisey opens up with his melodic voice, backed by the riffs of guitarists Josh White and Tobias Young. The latter also lends his pipes throughout and together they create a sound as beautiful as it is venomous.
The album itself is 13 tracks of engaging, soul searching lyrics to the backdrop of some of the hardest hitting riffs likely to be heard this year. Title track ‘Hartsick’ has one of those infectious, embedding choruses that will have you singing along before you even realise it. But these guys clearly like to mix things up and tracks like ‘Karmadillo’ and ‘Pride: Lioness’ perfectly demonstrate their ability to go from crushing vocals to having you sing “whoahhhhh” in no time at all.
There’s even room for a heart-wrenchingly beautiful acoustic version of ‘Throne to the Wolves’: a bonus track which shows just how vocally talented they are. As a band, their sound is reminiscent of Parkway Drive, Killswitch Engage and A Day To Remember for all the right reasons, perfectly blending an incredibly heavy sound with lyrics that hit home throughout.
As far as debuts go, this really hits the spot, and if they’ve got records like this in their locker, it won’t be long before Our Hollow, Our Home rise up to be one of the UK’s best heavy bands. A bright future awaits these South coast metal-heads.
CHRISTOPHER LEE