by Katie Stollmack (@katiestollmack)
Nate Amos, who performs under the name This is Lorelei, is wrapping up the biggest year of his career so far. In April, he released a deluxe version of his indie smash hit Box for Buddy, Box for Star, which features the likes of MJ Lenderman and Snail Mail. Summer brought It’s a Beautiful Place, the most acclaimed album yet from Water from Your Eyes, in which Amos is a founding member. Now, in the year’s final weeks, he is winding down with Holo Boy, a ten-track album of revisited tracks from his early career.
The album opens with “I Can’t Fall,” originally from 2020’s OK N8. The instrumentation begins with a similar stringy refrain as the original, but the re-recorded song is entirely different. Soft falsetto has been replaced with a more confident, natural vocal style. The shift in tone imbues a sardonic surety to the repeated chorus. “You’re gonna get right on that plane / Go back to California / But I’ll always feel this way.” It remains defeatist, but with an increased hint of sarcasm. There are echoes of the original recording’s vocal style as the song begins to fade out, but it is countered with a richly produced orchestral section that completely contrasts the original’s simple instrumentation.
The third track, “Dreams Away,” also gets a drastic makeover. The original is synthy and buzzy, with a computer beat and reverberating vocals. The new version is faster, with clearer instrumentation. The guitar stands out, and Amos’ voice is, once more, far more confident than the original. As the lyrics put it, this re-recording “washes away” the original’s dreamlike quality, awakening into a more upbeat, more optimistic sound.
“My Friend 2” stands out for its hand-picked guitar opening. This is not new--it is a holdover from the charming opening to This is Lorelei’s 2021 album Love is Everywhere. In fact, the track remains mostly unchanged from the original. But the sweet warning of friendship and potential loss benefits from improved recording and a barely noticeable refinement in the production.
Holo Boy represents an artist coming into his own. After over a decade of releasing music as This is Lorelei, Amos has achieved critical success. Between his solo work and releases with Water from Your Eyes, Amos’ projects are streaming in the millions and reaching year-end lists. With this new success, Amos can look back on the first decade of his career and refine it to match up with his current success.