by Shea Roney (@uglyhug_)
Very rarely do you find a band that, while new in the scheme of time, simultaneously sparks a feeling of fond and reverted sense of comfort; the kind you get when returning to the bands that were accomplices through milestones and memories. The Asheville/Brooklyn based band Hiding Places, consisting of Audrey Keelin Walsh (vox/guitar), Nicholas Byrne (vox/guitar) and Henry Cutting (drums) began in 2021 while they attended UNC’s Chapel Hill. Since forming, the band has cultivated and perfected a unique blend of hushed folk melodies, fun demeanor, and the crushing subtlety of Elephant 6 style production amongst two EPs and a handful of one off singles. As they have come to release their third EP, Lesson, Hiding Places reflects on the teetering compromises of adulthood, showing a young band embracing their imaginative and collaborative spirit to confront the duality of getting older.
While most of Lesson was recorded in London at Angel Studios (offshoot of Abbey Road) while Walsh was studying abroad, each song was fleshed out as the band lived out their perspective lives in different geographical locations across the US/UK. From the get go, Hiding Places has always been a fully collaborative group, a cohesive plea for individuality from each member in style and story. While Walsh was exposed to a more dreary music scene in London then the South had brought up, Byrne and Cutting were strong-arming their first harsh New York winter. Taking these locational influences into consideration, Lesson feels grimmer than past Hiding Places’ projects as they individually experienced feelings of loneliness, grief and the barring limits of human capacities. But with Byrne’s approach to production, along with help from Colin Miller (MJ Lenderman, Wednesday), the songs only feel enhanced to adequately honor these contentions through exposed layers, longing harmonies and booming instrumental passages.
In sedated distortion and minor tonalities, the title track grows from an outburst of love and genuine benevolence, as Walsh begins the EP with a statement; “I want to remind you of the lesson of understanding it is not in your control”. As an overt sense of warmth ebbs and flows where it sees fit, the track soon revolts into a second act; grim, dynamic and hopeless as the band witnesses joy, so distant through the lens of grief. “After Image,” conducted in the stylings of classic slowcore bands like Low, refers to a new kind of loneliness that Byrne was experiencing in New York. In its nature, the track plays with the idea of stillness as the guitars flurry down in uncoordinated patterns like snowfall as Walsh and Byrne’s harmonies grow and deplete like a series of deep breaths; demonstrating dynamism from trust and accents from pure addiction.
With a natural flow to storytelling, that old verse verse style of the folk classics, Walsh and Byrne’s songs feel timeless, from the process of the initial demos to the full band productions that they strategically blend together. “Elephant Key” finds Walsh exploring the capacities of different animals' self agency while also referring to their own accountability as a human. With a composure to singalong, the inclusion of flute and clarinet utilized to the likes of Irish folk traditions and melodies sees the song out until it combusts into a rumbling finale. The meandering lo-fi track “Crown of Tin” was originally written in 2019 during Walsh’s freshman year of college, which the band has repurposed in the final cut, using the original vocal and guitar demos that were recorded underneath their lofted dorm bed. Dealing with homesickness, Walsh sings a lullaby of their own vocation, a moment reverting back to comfortability, as the song explodes into a controlled burn of heavy distortion and smothering lo-fi drum track to end the EP with a visceral reaction.
As a band that has found a way to so comprehensively build upon nostalgia, pinpointing the exact feelings that sprout in our gut rather than force it's hand to be present, it's easy to find depth and accessibility in the work of Hiding Places. While each song bears a different story, Lesson, as a whole, is a cohesive project that personifies the moments that make for a wobbly transition into adulthood, yet Hiding Places have never felt more confident in the direction that they are headed.