Track By Track: Hollow Howl – Inner and Outer Terrain

We were quite taken with the distinctive, dark sound of Inner and Outer Terrain, the latest EP from New Jersey’s Hollow Howl, which came out late last year.

Part Siouxsie and part Jefferson Airplane, it’s an exciting and energising listening experience.  We asked the band to tell us more about its primal post-punk, desert-meets-the-bayou sound.

Sparkle Stars

Our language lacks fair, accurate and holistic words for mental and emotional well-being and struggles. This song ends in a crescendo of sound that asks the listener to find light, no matter how dim or bright. A post-punk rocker to start the album, awash in reverb, invoking a cosmic and animal bestiary.

Horse Epic

The solitary desert beckons. A reverberating minor chord rings out over a trotting rhythm, warbles in tremolo, dies out. So begins Horse Epic, the story-song of a solitary rider. She’s a strong and autonomous character who is faced with an unnamed crossroads. “There’s a town, in the distance,” Rachel Mackow (vocalist) whispers.

The town is a foreboding place. And beyond it are the demons who steal the nectar of life from the courageous, the creative and the vulnerable. Despite her encounter with the demons, she goes on, free, seeking safe passage.

If Siouxsie and the Banshees wrote the soundtrack to a Western film, it might sound a bit like this. Post-punk intensity, female vocals, atmospheric drums, with that classic western gothic minor chord wide open space feeling, and a few south-of-the-border touches.

Sneakers

A post-punk urban dance throwback. Our guitarist grew up in NYC at a time when boomboxes ruled the streets and graffiti covered the subways. The song is a post-punk urban dance throwback to a time when hip-hop, punk, and dance music mingled in the clubs and on the streets. The lyrics celebrate youthful joy and love – dance, laugh, and play music against the background of a summertime city.

Snakeskin

In the swampy blues thrasher Snakeskin, the protagonist sheds the confining coils of their persona to emerge more assertive and a bit badass. Played on overdriven acoustic guitar with folk blues fingerpicking and some thrashy swagger.

Step aside,
My forked tongue ain’t tied
Move, move
I’ve got something to prove
I bite, I hope that’s alright
I sting, it’s just my thing

Even The Great Temples

About the unravelling of history’s truth, the undoing of nations, the collapse of lineages. The song builds over a circular bass and drum line, with ethereal slide guitar accompanying rich, deep female vocals.

Inner and Outer Terrain can be downloaded on Bandcamp and is streaming on all music platforms including YouTube Music and Spotify. The band plays Dharma Bums in New Hope, Philadelphia on the 18th of January. Hit up the band on Blue Sky or Instagram for ticket details.