Hailing from the sun-kissed climes of Los Angeles, you might expect quartet Holy Wars to have an equally sunny sound. In truth, they are a far darker beast who explore the deepest depths of the human psyche and paint their music in decidedly monochrome shades. However, for their sophomore album this eight-legged monster have introduced light to temper their shade, and it’s a duality that will echo throughout latest long player Shadow Work/Light Work. Long term fans needn’t worry, Holy Wars are still excavating the blackest corners of the living world to create their sound, only now with an element of hope that ensures this album nestles in that sweet spot somewhere betwixt life and death, shadow and light.
Acting as a portent of what’s to come, opening track ‘O Death’ is a discombobulating affair that’s powered by a staccato riff and breaks up like a rip in the matrix. A feeling of unease and trepidation is created before the band appear in all their finery, sweeping from speaker to speaker and then swirling through the air as if ghosts at a séance. It’s perhaps the only way for Holy Wars to appear and lays down a marker for the rest of the album. It’s insidious and slowly ingratiates itself into the listener’s being and means that when the following ‘I Feel Everything’ hits, it hits hard. It finds the band on more familiar ground (or as familiar as Holy Ways can be) and finds them delivering a song that’s at once heavy and melodic and, as with the album’s overarching aesthetic, is a song that works on several levels. It’s a multi-pronged attack that seems to assault all your senses simultaneously, as such Shadow Work/Light Work is not the kind of album you put on as background music: when ‘I Feel Everything’ appears, it is hard to ignore and refuses to have its existence denied. It helps that Holy Wars know how to write a decent melody and ‘I Feel Everything’ (as, indeed, the whole album) comes loaded with memory hooks and will crawl around your cranium like the most friendliest of earworms.
It feels as if the album as an art form is making something of a renaissance; whilst some bands are releasing a collection of singles aimed solely at radio airplay, others are offering a more cohesive affair that takes the listener on a musical journey, and Holy Wars’ second falls very much into the latter category. From the ocean’s ululation found on ‘Crucify’ to the emotionally heavy ‘I.F.O.Y.G.’ via the windswept blast of ‘Kill The Light’, each of the dozen tracks comprising this record have their own identity, yet they are also inextricably linked. And while it is perfectly feasible to dip in and out of this album and enjoy songs such as ‘Ceremony’ in isolation, it is best consumed as part of the whole to fully appreciate this album’s push and pull and ebb and flow.
Shadow Work or Light Work? Holy Wars proves themselves adept at both.
- Shadow Work/Light Work is released via Pale Chord/Rise Records on 24th April 2026.
- Holy Wars Official Website
Track List:
- O Death
- I Feel Everything
- Shadowalker
- Crucify
- Skin Deep
- I.F.O.Y.G.
- Proof Of Existence
- Kill The Light
- Ceremony
- Everything You
- Holy Unholy
- Metamorphosis
