Premiere: Happy Hollows, ‘Meteors’

Kevin Bronson on August 14th, 2017

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Happy Hollows are the carbonated beverage of indie-rock — sweet, chilled and shaken, and after the top is popped, refreshing and good for you. The duo of singer-guitar wiz Sarah Negahdari and bassist Charlie Mahoney have evolved since their Pixie-ish early days to appoint their songs in a lacework of analog synths. And everything bubbles over on their new single “Meteors,” which sounds like somebody opened a can of spiked Blondie.

Appropriately, Negahdari says, the song “is about how I tend to store up emotions — remaining very quiet most of the time — until I just let things all out at once.” “Meteors” actually derived from one of the Happy Hollows’ early demos, she adds, but in considering material for the new album “Concordia,” the band revisited it. It passed muster with producer Lewis Pesacov (Best Coast, Valley Queen, Winter, among others) and “the first time we played it [during the recording sessions at Sunset Sound], the song felt really good, and so we kept that take and ended up using it. All the instruments and lead vocals were captured in one live take and the synths were overdubbed later.”

“Meteors” captures the irrepressible exuberance of Happy Hollows’ live show, carried along by a wash of synth and distinctly ’80s-sounding guitars until Negahdari erupts in a series of screams, yelps and vocal trills. “Concordia,” Happy Hollows’ third album, will be ready to have its top popped on Sept. 8.

||| Stream: “Meteors”