Austin, TX · psych · dream-pop

Holy Wave

3 festivals played

Austin psych with the tempo down and the reverb up — hazy, organ-lined grooves built for drifting rather than freaking out.

Holy Wave is a psychedelic rock band that formed in El Paso, Texas, before settling in Austin, where it became part of the city's long-running psych scene. The group's music leans on slow-to-mid tempos, layered guitars, vintage keyboard tones and heavily treated vocals, closer to dream pop and krautrock-style repetition than to garage-rock aggression.

Across a run of albums released over the past decade, the band has kept to that approach while gradually smoothing its edges, favouring warm production and long, circling grooves. Holy Wave has been associated with the Austin label The Reverberation Appreciation Society, and its records are usually written and recorded collaboratively by the group rather than led by a single frontman.

psychdream-pop