Single Review: Holy Motors - 'Signs'

Photo Credit - Kertin Vasser

Holy Motors are bringing their sounds from Estonia to the world in their new single, ‘Signs’.

The track is taken from their upcoming debut full-length release entitled ‘Slow Sundown’. ‘Signs’ will be the fourth song on the album, bringing a dystopian feeling to the listener. The band say that "Signs; is a ghost on the highway kind of song – like a trance of guitars. It’s the high pitch of your anxiety and the low of your blood rushing.” The three guitarists bring lines from cowboy ballads like “Honeymooning” but the new single for the band shows that they are not bound by their influences.

The rest of the album is set to be an 8-track immersive experience compiled of sad love songs centring around the idea of motion - the motion of a satellite orbiting a planet or of a passenger in a car – and how this relates to stellar-scale and existential isolation.

It seems like the five-piece band are embracing the idea of a conceptual album and with that comes an interesting sound utilising a consistent sonic palette that ranges from dark psychedelic pop to shoe-gaze-inflected western music. They are no doubt expanding on the dreamscape sounds experienced in ‘Sleeprydr’, their 7” released in 2017.

Holy Motors’ debut album is due to be released on the 9th of March on Wharf Cat Records.

Words by Max Herridge