Hollow Hand has shared Heavy Metal T-Shirt, the final single from fourth album Wish Road South, out September 4th via Loose Music / Soundly / Thirty Tigers. The track arrives with a video directed by Erin Birgy, better known as Mega Bog, and shot in and around Dublin. Birgy directed Adrianne Lenker’s Evol video last year.
It’s the rowdiest thing on the album. Max Kinghorn-Mills, Oliver Newton (drums) and Leo Clarke (bass) tracked it in the corridor of their Brighton studio complex, waiting for a night when nobody else was around so they could let rip. You can hear the room in it — there’s feedback left in the cracks and a singalong chorus that lands like a sucker punch.
“A true story! I bought an unidentified t-shirt at a thrift shop and I wrote a song about it,” Kinghorn-Mills says. “This song is about so many other things, somebody very special to me and an attempted conversation with her about the time we spent in a specific place, to let her know I’m thinking of her.”
The recording method mattered. “We set up in the corridor so we’d get lots of room sound on the microphones. It was important to play it uninhibited, to capture that feeling: it’s a dreary evening in Brighton, the roof is leaking, there’s rats in the basement, I’m recording a rowdy song with two of my best friends and that’s all that matters.”
Heavy Metal T-Shirt follows earlier singles Here Are The Tulips and I Turned My Back On The World. The album was mixed by Clarence Clarity and finds Kinghorn-Mills drawing on a period of renewed energy after touring with MJ Lenderman and playing in Caitlin Rose’s band. Hollow Hand play Americanafest in Nashville in September before a UK tour through October.
Wish Road South is out on September 4th via Loose Music / Soundly / Thirty Tigers.
Hollow Hand on tour
Sep 12 London, UK – Rough Trade Denmark Street
Sep 15-19 Nashville, TN – Americanafest
Oct 13 Leeds, UK – Hyde Park Book Club
Oct 14 Sheffield, UK – Delicious Clam
Oct 15 Manchester, UK – YES
Oct 16 Glasgow, UK – The Old Hairdresser’s
Oct 17 North Shields, UK – Three Tanners Bank
Oct 20 London, UK – The Lexington
Oct 21 Bristol, UK – The Louisiana
Oct 22 Newport, UK – Le Pub
Oct 23 St Davids, UK – St Davids City Council Hall
Oct 27 Southampton, UK – Heartbreakers
Oct 28 Margate, UK – Elsewhere
Oct 29 Ipswitch, UK – The Smokehouse
Oct 30 Brighton, UK – A L P H A B E T