As Miami's reigning lords of volume, Holly Hunt spent most of 2013 bludgeoning, crushing, and rearranging the molecules of people and places at home and across the country.
The band, comprising guitarist/fuzz-wrangler Gavin Perry and drummer/human-sledgehammer Beatriz Monteavaro, has had its sound analyzed and extolled by plenty of high-profile metal blogs and sites since making things official with the release of Year One. This unbelievably hefty debut full-length set the bar rather high for the duo. So beastly was the album — virtually bristling with riffs and rhythms built to move mountains — that it was sold with a pair of earplugs affixed to the jacket.
With an impending followup slated for release in early 2014 and a cramped live performance schedule through December, the band will likely receive more of the same high praise to which it has grown accustomed.
For those still unfamiliar with Holly Hunt's potent blend of doom, psychedelia, and ballistic noise, try to imagine what a squadron of World War II bombers might sound like flying overhead to someone deep in the grips of an acid trip at a 1974 Black Sabbath concert.
The band's sophomore release was tracked once again with Torche bassist/Shitstorm guitarist Jonathan Nuñez and will appear as a four-song EP, according to Monteavaro. The fare is expected to remain equally bludgeoning and psychedelic, though when we spoke with the drummer, she hinted at a bit more intricacy in these songs than those on Year One. The band's "sound is bigger," said guitarist Perry. "Betty and I are getting tighter as a team. The music is gaining complexity without obscuring the feel of the earlier tracks."
Though we'll all have to wait a few more months for the new album, Broward County's denizens of syrupy doom should begin bracing the walls and putting up the hurricane shutters for the band's fourth Broward show. It'll take place this Friday at the Bubble art space in Fort Lauderdale. The night, billed simply by the gross understatement "Loud Night," will also feature the garish noise conjuring of Death Talisman VII, the heavy prog of Manifest Test Subject, and the progressive thrash of the Killing Hours.
In addition to the remarkably rare Broward date, Holly Hunt has been added as support on a slew of other incredible shows coming to South Florida in the next few months, including one that will warp time and space with fellow amplifier-wall construction experts Jucifer, who will assault Churchill's Pub in February.
"We're very excited about that! I think it's going to be a killer show," Monteavaro said of the booking. "And then we have 305 Fest. Last year was awesome; this year is going to be awesome. The DIY people picked it up, and I feel like it's got a little more of their flavor. They tried to put at least local bands that have been really active and upholding the scene, and I think that's cool and really righteous."
Also recently tacked onto the band's already stacked docket is an opportunity to open for the legendary Godflesh. The show, Godflesh's only scheduled date in the Southeast, is a wildcard brought to the area by Alternative Mia. "Godflesh is one of the many bands we find influence in — part of our bucket list of bands we'd dreamed about playing with, however improbable it may be," Perry said. But for Holly Hunt, there is nothing they can't dream outside the realm of possibility.
