After assisting Isaac Brock with his Ugly Cassanova side project, Holopaw's John Orth struck out on his own with a shyly rendered self-titled debut. Now the singer/songwriter bequeaths a sophomore pile of pithy rock with Quit + Or Fight!, sounding more confident and comfortable in the director's chair with every stanza but lacking the songwriting thrust to match his she-pipes.
The biggest problem is Holopaw’s backing arrangements, which often seem to ride the coattails of Orth's plaintive man-coos. When he puts himself in the position to succeed with memorable instrumentation, Orth's frail, limp-wristed inflection swirls and swells overtop like the siren call of a distressed maiden wafting from a secluded tower; when the backing is lacking the songs often belly flop, tripping over recycled riffs and whiffs of ideas you'd swear were lifted directly from the classics.
"Holiday" is the only latently spectacular moment -- from there it's tough to continue to fight when all roads point to quitting, especially considering that 75% of the songs employ a drop-beat bass-drum rhythm that charms at first, but wears thin as single-ply tissue by record's end. Blessed with a vellum voice so paper-thin a strong gale of wind could blow right through it, Orth would do well to pay more attention to whipping his songs into shape next time around.
1. Losing Light
2. 3-shy-cubs
3. Curious (Free Mp3)
4. Holiday
5. Velveteen (All is bright.)
6. Clearing
7. Little Shaver
8. Needle in the Sway
9. Found (Quit +/or Fight)
10. Ghosties
11. Shiver Me
More about: Holopaw
