September 18, 2025 • 12 mins
We check out the recent single "Hiding in Plain Sight" by the L.A.-based metalcore band Holywatr.
Andrew has highly conflicting feelings about the band, but it's right up Dominique's alley.
Tell us about your first listen at @AtFirstListenPodcast on Instagram.
Subscribe so you don't miss an episode!
Andrew has highly conflicting feelings about the band, but it's right up Dominique's alley.
Tell us about your first listen at @AtFirstListenPodcast on Instagram.
Subscribe so you don't miss an episode!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to at First listen to the music podcast for
people who don't always.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Get the hype but want to.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
I'm Andrew, I'm Dominique, and today we're talking about a
brand new band to most of us called Holy Water
from LA and that's order Holy Watcher.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
W A t R is how that's spelled. Yeah, otherwise
very hard to search.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
No, I feel like that's a purely uh just a
branding thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
No, No, the more I think about it, the more
it makes sense. If you in these googling days, if
you name your band like a conventional a thing that
will have a lot of search results, you gotta spell
it weird.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
You have to.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
There was a time where you couldn't spell it weird
or no one would be able to find it.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
True.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Sure, and now you have to spell it weird.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah. I mean the thing is.
Speaker 5 (01:05):
You still might even like you could still search Holy
Water band, but there might there might be some other band.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Yeah, I mean your search engine might be like, are
you dumb?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Did you mean er?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
So yeah, this is a band. They just recently signed
to A Wall Records. I saw them a.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Couple of weeks ago. They were opening.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
They were the first opener for Architects the UK version,
there's a bunch of bands called Architects. Another hard to
search name.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
The Architects is that's two because that sounds like a band,
it sounds like a thing like it sounds like obviously,
and then you got Architects.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
The name is always spelled Architects UK. Gotcha, And as
I was verbalizing it for the first time, I was like,
do you pronounce the UK? No, you can't, that would
be ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Yeah, maybe you do.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
I don't care about that band, but I'm interested in
Holy Water. I think they are interesting. I can't front
and say that I love it.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
No, That's what I was thinking when I listened to
it on my own, that this doesn't sound like something
Andrew like. And I was a little bit like. He
said he doesn't like Emo. He said he didn't like
this type of music. And what's so different about this? Oh,
they have hard drum bass thing bass riffs.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Well, let's let's play a few seconds. There's a lot
of moments in this song hiding in plain sight. I'm
probably gonna have to jump around, but let's let's just
start with the beginning here.
Speaker 5 (02:55):
To the open for so this man is sexually assaulting
my ears, a little bit, very breathy.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
It's reminding me.
Speaker 5 (03:14):
It's definitely like giving you're a little too close to
me right now. He's sensual, it's very sexy.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
It will to be that and also be in a
metal band if you could call it metal, which I'm
not sure that I would, but it is like metal, certainly.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
It's metal ish. I think it's a.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
You suggested that it was scream oh.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
I think it's I'm calling it scream oh. I am, and.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
And your transition to middle age has been complete exactly.
Speaker 5 (03:45):
No, but I definitely because I always liked scream oh
music and I never thought it was derogatory, but apparently
you think it is. But I but like, that's probably
because you are prejudice against it. Whereas I was like, emo,
gimme whatever, give it to me. You know, I had
(04:05):
my hair dyed pink, and I had my bangs straightened,
and I said, give me that scream Oh. I want
to hear someone sad, so sad. And that's if you
got scream oh, if you got scream and emo screaming.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
So holy water perhaps asked the question, what if the
singer could actually sing.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, you know what, I'll give you that.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Drink.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
They're so cut out.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Like he has a very good voice, and from what
I saw live, uh, the band is very good. But
he was also he was I'm not saying that he
wasn't singing. I'm saying that there was. There was a
lot of tracks happening as well. They were helping everybody.
They were helping everybody. I can't help myself. My friends
(04:53):
work with this band, and I'm I like the band.
I'm probably going to see them again and over a
the course of many shows will form my final opinion.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
Now, I think there's a lot to be enjoyed here
in this band, in this music. I like, there's like
I like the different vocal qualities that he's.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
You know, he has the vocalist, He has all of
the vocal ability that you would want from a rock
or metal singer in these days, and he really shows
it off all on this song let Me find one
of the harder sections. Yeah, so he's got the grittier vocals.
(05:51):
It's not just sensual, you know. Yeah, he can sing
out with a little grid on it and shout out
to the rest of the band. Like the production on
the song is a plus. Everything sounds good, it hits
really hard when it's supposed to do, and it does.
It does the metal things that you would want it
(06:11):
to be. This is like a good example of why
we needed to talk about the deaf Tones all those
months ago. I heard that like this, this band Holy
Water and bands like them are in some way like
progeny of the deaf Tones, like spiritual progeny.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
What if there was a deaf Tones that was young
and hot. Yeah, and have you seen those memes that
are like the performative man competition. No, it's basically like
guys who with like an air, like dangly earrings and
nail polish and they're like reading bell hooks in public
(06:54):
and it's just like a joke, you know, performative l
ship and he would he I'm not saying he's doing that.
He just he seems like a rock star. That's what
I'm mainly seeing. But uh, if you need that energy,
if you're wanting Deftones energy with a young fresh man
(07:18):
who you're like, oh, this sexy voice goes with a
sexy man also not an.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Old man, how dare you talk about you?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I think it's a I think we're in a new
era of.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Yeah, and one of the people from their label, knowing
how I was going to feel about this, I think,
knowing how like conflicted I would be, he was like, honestly,
it's not metal, like it's sort of called that right now,
but it's pop music and it's just it's presented as metal,
(07:55):
and I think that's correct. I don't think that I
approve it. I think I want to gatekeep that.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
That's or at least that is my My instinct is
to protect what is quote unquote true.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Well, what is pop music?
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Well, that's that's another thing.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Like I would say, going back to like the nineteen eighties,
Poison Famous quote unquote hair metal or glam band was
a pop band, yes.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
But also people describe them as a metal band.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yes, well, like the Battles me sick. The Beatles are pop.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Beetles are a pop band for sure, but they're rock.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
But all Also, I would say with the Beatles specifically,
not all of the material is is a rock.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Well, yeah, because they have a bunch of weird stuff.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Like is is yellow Submarina rock song?
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (08:52):
It's something, it's something, yeah, But I yeah, I do
you does pop kind of are you defining pop as
the quality of.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
The creation as it's as music that is meant to
be consumable and meant to be for a broader audience.
You know, Holy Water might be a bit like there's
these bands like Bringing the Horizon and Pierce the Veil
that are like playing arenas now, yeah, and they actually
get played on terrestrial radio sometimes because they've sort of
(09:25):
gone away from the heavy metal element over time and
become more of like a sing song anthemic rock band,
which also can do metal songs during their shows or
metal moments.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
And you're kind of you're kind of saying that it's coming.
It's like picking up kind of where those bands already
landed in a way that it's it has those qualities,
but it has qualities that.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Get people that are more relatable to a wide.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Yeah, like the I'm just working I'm just working it
out right here live on our sh Yeah. Let me
scrub around a little bit more to find some of
the more metallic moments of hiding in Plaine Sights.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Okay, so now I'm back in. Now, I'm so back in.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
This is the confliction because the whole set I'm like,
what like, they don't have a bass player in this band.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
This guy is uh, he's how is he able.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
To sing all of this stuff and then do all
of these screams and then there'll be just like a
thick riff like that that I'm like, just make the
whole show this and I'm I have no qualms.
Speaker 5 (10:44):
Yeah, no, and I I I like it.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
I like it. I like this.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
So maybe you can come next time we see them.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yes, they're coming around in November.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I believe that sounds fun.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
I think the show's in Jersey, so you'll have to
come to Jersey again. Yay.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
The one the one complaint about it that I will
not back off is it fades out. It fades out
on that riff. And I've registered my complaint with the record.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Okay, good.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I'm not a fade out person in general.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
No one. That would have been perfect one to just
cut off?
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Yeah, why not?
Speaker 2 (11:27):
That's yeah, that would have been perfect.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Fading out on the heaviest part of the song. To me,
that's not cool. And I hope holy Water you do better.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Well the holy Water.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
I know you guys needed a couple of millennials with
a podcast to give us our thoughts. Uh, Together, we
make one major fan of yours.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
And and we're gonna we're gonna stay in it. We're
gonna keep listening. We're not gonna we're not gonna give up.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
On you yet.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
And hey, I know a great bassist if you ever
need someone to fill in when you're in New York.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yeah, yeah, so call us up.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
She already has one of them.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
She has a company.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
Well, thank you so much for listening. We will be
back next time. On that first listen,
Welcome to at First listen to the music podcast for
people who don't always.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Get the hype but want to.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
I'm Andrew, I'm Dominique, and today we're talking about a
brand new band to most of us called Holy Water
from LA and that's order Holy Watcher.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
W A t R is how that's spelled. Yeah, otherwise
very hard to search.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
No, I feel like that's a purely uh just a
branding thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
No, No, the more I think about it, the more
it makes sense. If you in these googling days, if
you name your band like a conventional a thing that
will have a lot of search results, you gotta spell
it weird.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
You have to.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
There was a time where you couldn't spell it weird
or no one would be able to find it.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
True.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Sure, and now you have to spell it weird.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah. I mean the thing is.
Speaker 5 (01:05):
You still might even like you could still search Holy
Water band, but there might there might be some other band.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Yeah, I mean your search engine might be like, are
you dumb?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Did you mean er?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
So yeah, this is a band. They just recently signed
to A Wall Records. I saw them a.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Couple of weeks ago. They were opening.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
They were the first opener for Architects the UK version,
there's a bunch of bands called Architects. Another hard to
search name.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
The Architects is that's two because that sounds like a band,
it sounds like a thing like it sounds like obviously,
and then you got Architects.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
The name is always spelled Architects UK. Gotcha, And as
I was verbalizing it for the first time, I was like,
do you pronounce the UK? No, you can't, that would
be ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Yeah, maybe you do.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
I don't care about that band, but I'm interested in
Holy Water. I think they are interesting. I can't front
and say that I love it.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
No, That's what I was thinking when I listened to
it on my own, that this doesn't sound like something
Andrew like. And I was a little bit like. He
said he doesn't like Emo. He said he didn't like
this type of music. And what's so different about this? Oh,
they have hard drum bass thing bass riffs.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Well, let's let's play a few seconds. There's a lot
of moments in this song hiding in plain sight. I'm
probably gonna have to jump around, but let's let's just
start with the beginning here.
Speaker 5 (02:55):
To the open for so this man is sexually assaulting
my ears, a little bit, very breathy.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
It's reminding me.
Speaker 5 (03:14):
It's definitely like giving you're a little too close to
me right now. He's sensual, it's very sexy.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
It will to be that and also be in a
metal band if you could call it metal, which I'm
not sure that I would, but it is like metal, certainly.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
It's metal ish. I think it's a.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
You suggested that it was scream oh.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
I think it's I'm calling it scream oh. I am, and.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
And your transition to middle age has been complete exactly.
Speaker 5 (03:45):
No, but I definitely because I always liked scream oh
music and I never thought it was derogatory, but apparently
you think it is. But I but like, that's probably
because you are prejudice against it. Whereas I was like, emo,
gimme whatever, give it to me. You know, I had
(04:05):
my hair dyed pink, and I had my bangs straightened,
and I said, give me that scream Oh. I want
to hear someone sad, so sad. And that's if you
got scream oh, if you got scream and emo screaming.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
So holy water perhaps asked the question, what if the
singer could actually sing.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, you know what, I'll give you that.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Drink.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
They're so cut out.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Like he has a very good voice, and from what
I saw live, uh, the band is very good. But
he was also he was I'm not saying that he
wasn't singing. I'm saying that there was. There was a
lot of tracks happening as well. They were helping everybody.
They were helping everybody. I can't help myself. My friends
(04:53):
work with this band, and I'm I like the band.
I'm probably going to see them again and over a
the course of many shows will form my final opinion.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
Now, I think there's a lot to be enjoyed here
in this band, in this music. I like, there's like
I like the different vocal qualities that he's.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
You know, he has the vocalist, He has all of
the vocal ability that you would want from a rock
or metal singer in these days, and he really shows
it off all on this song let Me find one
of the harder sections. Yeah, so he's got the grittier vocals.
(05:51):
It's not just sensual, you know. Yeah, he can sing
out with a little grid on it and shout out
to the rest of the band. Like the production on
the song is a plus. Everything sounds good, it hits
really hard when it's supposed to do, and it does.
It does the metal things that you would want it
(06:11):
to be. This is like a good example of why
we needed to talk about the deaf Tones all those
months ago. I heard that like this, this band Holy
Water and bands like them are in some way like
progeny of the deaf Tones, like spiritual progeny.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
What if there was a deaf Tones that was young
and hot. Yeah, and have you seen those memes that
are like the performative man competition. No, it's basically like
guys who with like an air, like dangly earrings and
nail polish and they're like reading bell hooks in public
(06:54):
and it's just like a joke, you know, performative l
ship and he would he I'm not saying he's doing that.
He just he seems like a rock star. That's what
I'm mainly seeing. But uh, if you need that energy,
if you're wanting Deftones energy with a young fresh man
(07:18):
who you're like, oh, this sexy voice goes with a
sexy man also not an.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Old man, how dare you talk about you?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I think it's a I think we're in a new
era of.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Yeah, and one of the people from their label, knowing
how I was going to feel about this, I think,
knowing how like conflicted I would be, he was like, honestly,
it's not metal, like it's sort of called that right now,
but it's pop music and it's just it's presented as metal,
(07:55):
and I think that's correct. I don't think that I
approve it. I think I want to gatekeep that.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
That's or at least that is my My instinct is
to protect what is quote unquote true.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Well, what is pop music?
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Well, that's that's another thing.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Like I would say, going back to like the nineteen eighties,
Poison Famous quote unquote hair metal or glam band was
a pop band, yes.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
But also people describe them as a metal band.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yes, well, like the Battles me sick. The Beatles are pop.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Beetles are a pop band for sure, but they're rock.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
But all Also, I would say with the Beatles specifically,
not all of the material is is a rock.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Well, yeah, because they have a bunch of weird stuff.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Like is is yellow Submarina rock song?
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (08:52):
It's something, it's something, yeah, But I yeah, I do
you does pop kind of are you defining pop as
the quality of.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
The creation as it's as music that is meant to
be consumable and meant to be for a broader audience.
You know, Holy Water might be a bit like there's
these bands like Bringing the Horizon and Pierce the Veil
that are like playing arenas now, yeah, and they actually
get played on terrestrial radio sometimes because they've sort of
(09:25):
gone away from the heavy metal element over time and
become more of like a sing song anthemic rock band,
which also can do metal songs during their shows or
metal moments.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
And you're kind of you're kind of saying that it's coming.
It's like picking up kind of where those bands already
landed in a way that it's it has those qualities,
but it has qualities that.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Get people that are more relatable to a wide.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Yeah, like the I'm just working I'm just working it
out right here live on our sh Yeah. Let me
scrub around a little bit more to find some of
the more metallic moments of hiding in Plaine Sights.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Okay, so now I'm back in. Now, I'm so back in.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
This is the confliction because the whole set I'm like,
what like, they don't have a bass player in this band.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
This guy is uh, he's how is he able.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
To sing all of this stuff and then do all
of these screams and then there'll be just like a
thick riff like that that I'm like, just make the
whole show this and I'm I have no qualms.
Speaker 5 (10:44):
Yeah, no, and I I I like it.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
I like it. I like this.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
So maybe you can come next time we see them.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yes, they're coming around in November.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I believe that sounds fun.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
I think the show's in Jersey, so you'll have to
come to Jersey again. Yay.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
The one the one complaint about it that I will
not back off is it fades out. It fades out
on that riff. And I've registered my complaint with the record.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Okay, good.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I'm not a fade out person in general.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
No one. That would have been perfect one to just
cut off?
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Yeah, why not?
Speaker 2 (11:27):
That's yeah, that would have been perfect.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Fading out on the heaviest part of the song. To me,
that's not cool. And I hope holy Water you do better.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Well the holy Water.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
I know you guys needed a couple of millennials with
a podcast to give us our thoughts. Uh, Together, we
make one major fan of yours.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
And and we're gonna we're gonna stay in it. We're
gonna keep listening. We're not gonna we're not gonna give up.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
On you yet.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
And hey, I know a great bassist if you ever
need someone to fill in when you're in New York.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yeah, yeah, so call us up.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
She already has one of them.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
She has a company.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
Well, thank you so much for listening. We will be
back next time. On that first listen,
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