Holyveins EP Review

Grade: A+
Sentence: Spent way too much time singing along with Holyveins and crying about her EP to all my friends than trying to write this review.

Listening to Holyveins, you can only have one, very vivid and specific sensation:

The rain pitter patters softly on the asphalt. The smell of wet cement wafts up to your open window.

You're tucked away in a warm comforter, wearing soft, fluffy socks that go up to your knees and an oversized knitted sweater, sipping away at some tea and smiling like hell about some boy you're in love with.

In your chest, your heart is fluttering unevenly, tugging at its strings, trying to break free.

I've never been one for love-inspired, well, anything -- in my defense, it just seems too sweet -- but in her self-titled EP, Holyveins pulls it off with just enough melancholy to make her unique in an already crowded subject area.

Holyveins sings with care, every instrument's use deliberate and thought out. You won't find random cymbals just thrown in just to be there -- instead, you'll find pared down beats that won't distract too much from her voice.

If you're a diehard fan and have listened to all the singles she released before her EP, you'll notice slight, subtle differences -- another instrument added in the background to accentuate a few key points, some light harmonization here and there.

It's those little details that make Holyveins so good at what she does -- even though the essence of the song "Paper Wings" hasn't changed much from its demo to its final appearance in the EP, there is a definite improvement in production and execution that really pays off satisfaction-wise.

If you have only two minutes and are only going to listen to one song out of her EP, my favorite song, hands down, was "Paper Wings." After listening to it for the first time, I sang it to myself incessantly for days after, and I'm currently pleading my friend to cover it on her YouTube channel.

Do yourself a favor, and listen to her EP now!



Have you listened to our interview with Holyveins yet? If not, here's the link.

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Steph Kang is a former Voices editor and staff writer for the Granite Bay Gazette as well as a semi-regular blogger at steph-kang.com. She is also the proud founder and editor-in-chief of Unfurled Mag and writes weekly for Femme and Fortune.