HOLLY HUMBERSTONE - ROOM SERVICE
Holly Humberstone grew up in a haunted family home in the dark green countryside outside of the small, smoky town of Grantham, England. Her first two EPs Falling Asleep at the Wheel and The Walls Are Way Too Thin speak to the sombreness of a rainy adolescence and young love gone up in smoke; the fogginess of stepping out of childhood and the crumbling of what is behind one's back; and the poetic but chilling haunting of city streets.
On her first album, 2022's Can You Afford To Lose Me?, built around the setting of her beloved childhood home as her parents and siblings are boxing up its things, and contemplating the natural themes of endings, bonds, haunting, and renewal, Humberstone's moon fae-voice and poetry and white magick-sound are crisp. "Can You Afford To Lose Me" is a siren's call atop an enchanted nighttime to a love Humberstone picks up time and time again; "Please Don't Leave Just Yet" is a sober plea recorded in a room passed through by gentle, nocturnal creatures; "Deep End" is a friendship bracelet of braided pine-needles and wisteria flowers for Holly's three sisters; "Haunted House" is a Gothic farewell cried out in a hollowed out home with the company of only the singer's piano; and "Falling Asleep At The Wheel" is an apologetic swan song to a deadened juvenile love as its last plumes heave to the ground.
Until about a week ago, off of Humberstone's second album to-be released on October 13th, were the singles "Superbloodmoon" featuring Houston's d4vd and "Antichrist," both comprised of lyricism pricked with Gothic literature and with a sound leaning towards cyber-Modernism. A metallic guitar and thick digital drum beats compose the body of "Superbloodmoon," static-fuzzing, dripping cyber, aluminum-y, and spinning-antennae sounds texture the song's soundscape, forming a complex arrangement of multiple mechanic parts. A luxuriant, silvery effect gently mechanizes Humberstone and d4vd's melodic voices, the two singing about connecting souls unbound by the human body; phrased in the terms of, "strip[ping] down to our vitals," and , "[being] obsessed with your design;" while under the spell of a witching icon, the "superbloodmoon."
Humberstone's fae voice takes on a demoniac form on "Antichrist," the song's subject concerning the singer-songwriter's fears about and guilt over stealing the innocence and life-force of an intimate partner, in language that matches that of religious-tinged, Gothic monster novels: "Did I use your body? / Did I leave you broken," "So, come on give me hell, cause heaven knows I deserve it / It chills my bones to know you're suffering." Elements of industrial rock seep into synthy electro-pop to make up the song: a shivering digital backbone and low, echoing beats compose the spine, crunchier, menacing and smooth, silvery bars layer beside and fold on top of one another, and gliding trails sweep behind Humberstone's voice in the choruses.
Paint My Bedroom Black's third single dropped at the end of July: "Room Service" recreatesthe duty and grandeur of Gothic Romantic poetry, featuring Humberstone's promise to a beloved one suffering in a state of depression. The singer-songwriter borrows evocative symbols belonging to the poetic movement, "roses," "flowers," "garden," "tomb," "alcohol." She incorporates these symbols into declarations full of heroic devotion and humility: "I am carrying roses to you / So many flowers you're going to need a bigger room to fit them in," "I am burying the things that hurt you / I'm digging holes in the garden, babe, I made a tomb to put them in," "I am pining to be next to you / Just to get drunk, passing out in early afternoon from alcohol." In the second verse Humberstone presents a plan to take her beloved away from their place of misery - the two will lock themselves somewhere that they can't be found, where Humberstone can keep things as heavenly for her beloved as she possibly can. Even if they will be afflicted by the shadows that are haunting them, Humberstone will be by their side, watching over them. The singer-songwriter's voice is ethereal and strong as she dedicates each word, the single's soundscape possessing a whimsical, slightly grungey feeling. A twinkling and a rumbling guitar form the instrumental body that Hailey's voice rests on top of, softly luminescent piano keys flutter now and again, a sturdy oak voice harmonizes with Humberstone in the final lines of the choruses, as does Hailey's own heavier iron voice, in the second half of the song. A sprinkling of dust made of a silvery metal rests on top of every nook.
Listen to "Room Service" and "Antichrist," pre-order Paint My Bedroom Black, and connect with Holly Humberstone's social medias: https://www.hollyhumberstone.com
