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Aug 01, 2023 By Caleb Campbell Photography by James Oswald

Later this week, Austin-based psych rock outfit Holy Wave are back with their latest full-length record, Five of Cups. Over the past decade, the band have fashioned themselves into mainstays in the world of gauzy psychedelia, infusing dream pop soundscapes with colorful instrumentation, lush melodies, and weighty pathos. Fans last heard from the band in 2020 with their fifth record, Interloper, and their latest album was written over quarantine in the following months, taking its name from the titular tarot card which usually signifies loss and grief.

The band has already spent the early months of the year teasing the record, releasing a trio of new singles “Happier,” “Bog Song,” and “Nothing in the Dark” in the leadup to its release date. Today, the band is back with their fourth and final single from the record, “The Darkest Timeline,” along with an accompanying video, premiering with Under the Radar.

“The Darkest Timeline” is a patient and expansive new effort, the kind that unfurls slowly but steadily reveals new shades with each passing moment. The track begins in a quiet simmer, with the band shrouded in shadowy basslines and beguiling guitar textures. Celestial synth accents and hypnotic percussion join alongside the vocals, courtesy of Mexican shoegaze duo Lorelle Meets the Obsolete. As the song builds, the band piles on the effects and layers of instrumentation, ascending in a decadent swell of dreamy melody until they hit a cathartic apex. Meanwhile, the accompanying video finds the band inhabiting a more minimalist mode, spicing together close-ups of their hands mid-performance and emphasizing their seamless instrumental chemistry.

Vocalist/guitarist Ryan Fuson says of the track, “We had been working on this song since the pandemic and had recorded an original version with Kyle singing. Sometime during the pandemic, we asked Lorelle Meets the Obsolete to add some stuff, and you hear the version with all of us in it. It was our first time writing a song with someone outside the band singing, and it felt so fresh and exciting. It is not the last time you will hear of a collaboration between us.”

Fuson continues, saying of the video, “We had initially wanted to do a visualizer with some footage of us playing the song, but as we started filming it and concepts like focusing only on hands started forming, we realized that we were going to have to make a full video; it was going to be too hard only to use a few seconds of the footage we got. We filmed all our parts here in Austin, TX, and Lorelle did their parts in Ensenada, MX.”

Check out the song and video below. Five of Cups is out everywhere on August 4th via Suicide Squeeze Records.