Holo Boy

About

You might feel like you’ve heard the chiming guitars and sweetly hangdog vocal chorales of Nate Amos’ perfect indie-pop somewhere before: Maybe it was a Big Star album, maybe it was Death Cab for Cutie; maybe Paul McCartney, or Apples in Stereo, or Girls, or The dB’s; or any of the legions of deep-feeling shyboys, like Rivers Cuomo or Brian Wilson, who, over the years, have turned the quest for the perfect two-minute-and-change guitar-pop song into an almost hermetic pursuit. But in a way, the familiarity is the point. Amos—whose work with Water From Your Eyes is shaggier and more experimental—isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel so much as worship at the altar of those who came before, turning out songs as small and neatly composed as paper cranes (“SF & GG,” “Dreams Away”). That these tracks are rerecordings of songs previously self-released between 2014 and 2021 reinforces the point: Modest as the music is, he needed to get it right.

via Apple Music