LOS ANGELES, CA- Bands in Los Angeles are always shape-shifting, name-changing, and reinventing themselves while searching for a voice, a sound, and an image. It’s every artist’s dream to create a living legacy that connects with audiences while populating Spotify playlists everywhere.
After last night’s début performance by Holy Wars at the Echoplex in Los Angeles, frontwoman Katherine Pawlak and guitarist Nicolas Perez, two performers who have risen from their earlier collaborative effort Sad Robot, beautifully and deservedly flaunted a fantastic, new sound that shows the two artists have emerged from the ashes of the past with something rare, beautiful, and nearly filmic in today’s music landscape.
Since their days in Sad Robot, the two have fallen in love, dug into their pasts, and written a myriad of new songs that can easily be considered sublime, gut-wrenching, and explosive. Even their body language seems to have been reinvented and Pawlak’s vocals and Perez’s shredding combined with her and Perez’s physical performance seem to vibrate the stage while magnetically drawing the audience in.
But the most vibrant change is the music itself. Sad Robot always felt like 2 bands to me. There was this almost orchestral, layered version of their songs on one side, and then this gut-rock, protest version of their songs on the other. Both were equally powerful, but they did not share the same DNA with each other.
Now it seems that Pawlak and Perez have created a truly unified sound that felt consistent throughout the entire set. However, consistency is a word that completely undersells their passion, lyrics, and punch-you-in-the-ear sound. They are definitely one of the bands to watch out for in 2017 because, by this time next year, The Echoplex will be one of those small stages Holy Wars will look back on and think, ‘remember when.’
Follow Holy Wars on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
LIVE CLIPS
