Album Review: This Is Lorelei’s Holo Boy Tracks the Progression of Nate Amos’ Songwriting

If it were not for the fact that many of This Is Lorelei’s songs are re-recordings of tracks released as far back as a decade ago, the newest release from This Is Lorelei would feel like a long-lost collection of great demos.

The tracks on Holo Boy are punchy, economical pop hooks in the tradition of bands such as Big Star and The Beach Boys. Each song introduces the main melodic idea within its first two seconds and doesn’t skimp on complicated song structure or arrangements. 

The strengths of the album are perhaps no better shown than on the first track, “I Can’t Fall,” a lackadaisical mellotron stroll that is undercut with the sadness of parting, all delivered through its author’s casually sunny demeanor. The song features an abundance of the trappings of 1970s soft-rock: a lush, active chord progression, a falsetto chorus, a dry drum sound, and a guitar solo that gingerly echoes the verse melody. Against this background, songwriter Nate Amos, who was previously best known for his work as lead guitarist in Water from Your Eyes, paints an ambivalent lyrical picture, pitting the assuredness of the chorus—“You already caught me, I can’t fall”—against the sadder story told by the song’s verses, which depict a relationship lost forever. 

The songs on the album were written between 2014 and 2021, depicting the evolution of Nate Amos’ songwriting sensibility. After the standout first track,  “But You Just Woke Me Up” opens up in a way that feels conspicuously out of place. With its muted guitar chords and sanguine bell chimes, the track is redolent of the kind of polished pop that indie bands like Phoenix were churning out around the turn of the last decade. This is not to say that the second track is a dud, but rather that if this record tracks the emergence of an artistic voice over time, it represents the starting point rather than the finish line.

As the record progresses, different songs reveal shades of the transition between the derivative indie-pop of the second track to the more complex emotional and musical palettes that have led to This Is Lorelei’s recent runaway success. The following three songs, “Dreams Away,” “SF & GG,” and “My Friend 2” are testaments to Amos’ talent for constructing pop hooks, the easy musicality and casual grace of which belie a true underlying melancholy. Coming in at well under two minutes, “SF & GG” is a dart of great indie pop, bothering itself neither with a chorus nor a bridge, but rather spinning an entire song out of a single melody, bookended with a sparse but perfectly fitting guitar line. 

“Dreams Away” is another nearly perfect track, in which Nate Amos once again draws a note of regret and ennui out of what is otherwise a world of perfect pop optimism. Like much of the album, the production on “Dreams Away” is one of its standout features. Against a lush background of acoustic guitar and piano, the overdriven lead guitar tone, which is present throughout the record, cuts through the mix in jagged, distorted glory. 

This record is a totem to the craft of the song. Between its pithy, indelible songwriting, its meticulous production, and its re-recordings of decade-old material, it’s clear that Nate Amos is enamored with the form of the great pop song. Some songs may stand up better than others in the light of a decade, but that’s part of the record’s fun. Unlike in Amos’ heavier, more experimental outfit, Water from Your Eyes, This Is Lorelei is a group committed to creating a great song.

Richard Cavaliere-Mazziotta can be reached at rcavalierema@wesleyan.edu.