Alabama foursome rocks out with debut album
Holiday Gunfire is set to release their debut, self-titled album on Friday, February 15th. The Alabama-based band is fairly new, coming together in 2017, but it is anything but a freshman debut.
To the contrary, the album has all the spit and polish of a seasoned group of road dogs who’ve played together long enough to anticipate their bandmates’ moves almost preternaturally.
This eerie synchronization comes as absolutely no shock at all as Michael Williams, Jason Hamric, Craig Cervaolo, and Lester Nuby III have been friends for a long time. Likewise, each has made a name for himself in the music business.
In hindsight, it seems like a classic, “Well what you took you so long?” moment. When the four gathered for a Fourth of July celebration in which they, as musicians are wont to do, engaged in some adult beverages, explosives and firepower, they birthed the idea of Holiday Gunfire and set to writing and recording songs.
The result is a sound that, to my ear, encompasses the best of The Who when that band was at the top its game. There are plenty of other comparisons to be made—they have been likened to Fugazi elsewhere and there are certainly some elements of The Foo Fighters found here. But comparisons, as always, are merely a placeholder, a starting point from which you delve into the unique musical identity of a band.
The songs are lush in their arrangement, as though guitars, vocals, drums, and bass are bleeding in to each other’s microphones, not from poor engineering, but by design.
The result is a gorgeously captured “live” feel to the music, a seamless melding of sound into a wall of rock and roll. The quality of the production values alone is absolutely top-notch; the material, no less so.
One of the most impressive elements of the album, from “Aviator Saint” to “The City,” is that it is completely a collaborative, ensemble affair. Each player shines in his ability, but no one steps up to hog the spotlight. It isn’t “frontman and backing band” so much as “four equally talented musicians contributing to the greater good.”
There are solos, to be sure, but they always feel like an organic part of the whole, not just some hot-dogging because the big book of songwriting says a solo is supposed to go here.
Literally everything about the album seems to be about the collective, right down to the liner notes and promotional materials failing to mention who plays what.
I suspect this was an intentional move, because really, you aren’t listening to four individuals, you are listening to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, a rare find.
The songwriting itself is spot on, a deft combination of defiant rock and roll and thoughtful and melodious composition. “Fake It” is a grand takeaway from the album, a single track that exemplifies everything I’ve said so far.
There are eight tracks altogether and not a dud in the lot. It is the sort of music equally at home at a festival, in a stadium, or in the smoky confines of the “secret bar” tourists don’t know about. In any of those venues, Holiday Gunfire will have folks on their feet, waving their arms and swaying in time to one of the best ensemble rock acts in the region.
Soon to be available on vinyl, CD, digitally and streaming, the most powerful debut album I’ve heard in years can be had on February 15th via Cornelius Chapel Records.