Three years on from the last Hollow Hand album, Max Kinghorn-Mills delivers a fully harmonious union of folk and indie pop on Wish Road South, his best to date.
On 2023’sYour Own Adventure, Max Kinghorn-Mills described the process of creating and recording as an archetype of the virtues of the DIY ethic: “About just doing everything yourself and not needing to rely on anyone. That’s the one thing I love about doing this: no one has any answers for you, you are your own boss, and it’s Your Own Adventure”.
On Wish Road South, the fourth Hollow Hand album, Kinghorn-Mills has clearly been invigorated by witnessing the creative powers of his peers, whilst collaborating with the likes of Aoife Nessa Frances, serving as the house band for Caitlin Rose, and supporting MJ Lenderman on his sold-out tour.
Not only has this acted as a spur to creativity, and expanded his horizons, it’s clearly the joy of being in a hand that courses through this new record, his playing alongside Oliver Newton (drums) and Leo Clarke (bass), infusing the record with a real sense of joie de vivre, while its production – aided by Clarence Clarity‘s mix – has a new richness and warmth compared to previous outings.
The result is a vibrant record in which you can feel the fun coursing through it, as the zest of a reconfigured and tightly-knit group of musicians burns as brightly as the beautifully melodic and unique songs that they’ve forged here. However, opener, Flowers In The Garden, is somewhat out of character with the rest of the album, with Kinghorn-Mills intoning over a drone-like, wheezing Wurlitzer sound: “Where will you go and what will you find there?/ Where will you go to, where will you go?/ Where will you go when you don’t know your way there?/Where will you go to?” It begins like an early folk standard, exemplifying Kinghorn-Mills’ love of the English pastoral, before suddenly bursting into life just before the end – something akin to a reel with its violin and pipes.
The first single, Here Are The Tulips, sets the tone for much of the album; its feel-good sound is something of a meditation on his sleepy commute to the recording studio, with the lyrics “Eight in the morning, just when I’m yawning/Catching the bus, now I’m reading a story”, perfectly complemented by the breezy, driving, indie-folk pop sensibilities, with jangling guitars and a pulsing melody. It’s a sound reminiscent of Hollow Hand’s debut album, Star Chamber, but with the arrangements more elevated.
The title of the album comes from a specific stop on this bus route, which leads directly south to the Sussex coast. The journey itself has something of a multi-layered meaning here, with Kinghorn-Mills looking to navigate himself towards a place where he’s happiest.
Kiss The Boot has a terrific punchy riff, with some lovely call-and-response interaction and vocal harmonising between Kinghorn-Mills and Josephine McNamara. The fabulous Love Again also demonstrates his real facility for personal observation. You could imagine the likes of Lou Reed intoning some of the lyrics on the former: “I looked at every single bar last weekend, just to ask did you want me at the party?/I heard you’re working nights for the man again, I saw you on the corner of North Gardens”.
The playful-sounding Black Metal Corpse Paint, with its joyous saw-like violin from Landon George, has its goth-like wearers struggling to maintain their serious composure without smiling, while Kinghorn-Mills says he “ain’t gonna Tik and I try not to Tok, there’s enough going down on this god awful rock”. Ultimately, what he wishes for is “a green place where I lay down and fade away”.
Side two of the album gets off to a particularly strong start with I Turned My Back On The World, our protagonist again seeking sanctuary from a cruel world in childhood memories – conjuring another photograph from the family album pulled forward through time: “Another picture of us smiling in the Cornish wind/Sitting on the beach again, help it was so easy then/Hey hey hey.. Such a perfect day” – perhaps further evidence of Lou Reed’s influence here.
But if the weary vocal inflections and lyrics of I Turned My Back On The World are freighted with the weight of a heavy heart, then Heavy Metal T-Shirt is unadulterated pure joy, with its amped up, Teenage Fanclub-y vibes and sing-along chorus: “Radio, they play your song so loud, the one about the house/the one with LDR”. A song about a thrift store purchase, it also references Kinghorn-Mills’ muse, Holly Macve, and her collaboration with Lana Del Ray on the song Suburban House, on which Kinghorn-Mills also played bass and guitar.
The more frenetic, power-pop Drinking With Judy, has the band back to fully rocking out, in marked contrast to the nostalgia-fuelled Green Meadows Of England, that will inevitably draw comparisons to the likes of Ray Davies and Syd Barrett: “There is a place where I can go back alone, where I think that I formed my opinions/Past the people sitting on the village green, past the pub where I saw my dominions”.
The softly strummed A Gentle Place casts love as the ultimate refuge from the demands of a life lived on the road, with gorgeous melody and string arrangements, feeling like the perfect coda to close out what must surely be a contender for album of the year.
Wish Road South (September 4th, 2026) Loose Music