“Be the cold in my lungs where I like you the most.”
With a sound comprising elements of shoegaze, black and doom metal, post rock and metal, atmospheric bits and so on, Holy Fawn are panoptic. Ever since the release of their sophomore album Death Spells in 2018, the band has been on a meteoric rise, and deservedly so. It’s a breath of fresh air emanating soulfully through and through. Death Spells cemented Holy Fawn as the band to keep an eye out for. The anticipation for another full length has been massive, but Dimensional Bleed is finally here and it is exactly how you would expect it to be: a masterpiece.
Dimensional Bleed is a tad bit more reserved than its predecessor. More subtle and softer than Death Spells, it feels more sombre in tone rather than cathartic. The aggression is cut out in favour of more gloomier aspects on tracks such as “Amaranthine” and “Dimensional Bleed”. These melancholic undertones provide more grandeur, beaming with ambition, with a subtle comfort in the sadness. There is balance in the sound; from the soft strums of guitar to its explosive drums, the contrast elevates each element to a pedestal that results in many remarkable moments, and the result is something truly spectacular.
Dimensional Bleed allows each track to have its own place and moment across near 51 minute runtime. From the soul-wrenching 7 minute journey of “True Loss” to the shorter and more paced sections such as “Amaranthine”, each part feels finely crafted and considered to contribute to the overarching atmosphere that Dimensional Bleed conveys. Apt to the name, one minute you can feel like taking a deep dive under the water then be transported to hyperspace the next instance, seamlessly bleeding through dimensions. It’s an ethereal beauty laced with the most elegant tones.
Delving into the record’s layers and intricacies results in one discovering something new with each listen. Whether it’s Dimensional Bleed’s underlying ambient electronic tones, its ferocious instrumentals, or the hauntingly fierce vocals. This allows for variation in the ebb and flow of the record, with each dimension coming to the forefront to complement each other. This is particularly evident in “Sightless“, which opens with gentle keys, each successive element slowing entering to build up to an epic soundscape. The beautiful vocal hook “tell me what you seek” echoes through its latter moments.
Where Dimensional Bleed truly becomes an exceptional record is in its emotional capacity and range. On single “Death is a Relief“, the sheer raw emotion displayed gives it a potency that is rarely found in music. A seemingly innocent and dreamy track in its opening phases, it breakdowns into a spiral of emotion and lyricism that seek to strike at the core of one’s being. Later, in the record’s closing moments before entering the epilogue that is “Blood Memory“, Dimensional Bleed enters its most vulnerable moments with the aforementioned “True Loss“. The reverberating nature of the lyric “Sometimes it feels like, you’re the only like me, out there” bleeds grief, loneliness, and an eye-watering sadness into the soul. Holy Fawn layer another beautiful soundscape behind this, the guitars imitating the emotional prowess of the vocal performance.
Closing with the same lyrics that opened the record, “There is only time, a circular pattern, a hex I abide. I’ll find you again in some other life“, it’s difficult not to be in awe at what Holy Fawn have put together. “Void of Light”, “Death is a Relief”, and “True Loss”, some of the unit’s finest work to date, exist as a wider tapestry of sound and emotion to form a genre-defining piece of art.
Sitting alongside Death Spells, Holy Fawn are putting together a discography that has the potential to be looked back upon as one of the finest. I do feel Dimensional Bleed perhaps doesn’t reach a similar level of intimacy as its predecessor, failing to reach the emotive connection I have developed with tracks such as “Drag Me into The Woods” and “Take Me with You“. Despite this, Dimensional Bleed deserves to be in conversation for one of the most exceptional records released this year. Those who look to explore the story that is being told here will find a true gem of a listen.
9.5/10
Dimensional Bleed is out 9th September via Wax Bodega and you should pre-order it here.