Holt are certainly not the first band in the Irish canon to head for sunnier, less mercurial climes in search of musical awakening – The Thrills crafted a sun-drenched oeuvre in their spiritual home of San Diego, and even Damien Rice decamped to Tuscany to create the aptly pastoral and rustic O. Reportedly moved to write the album on their backpacking travels around Australia, Holt appear mindful of the summery, sweeping euphoria of their host country, creating not so much the sound of Jet, The Vines or The Datsuns, but rather a pleasantly uncomplicated album, embossed with clean healthy air, azure skies and painfully perfect beaches.
The overall effect of ‘90 Mile Beach’ is a warmer Johnny Cash – a less black Man In Black, if you will. Simplicity and candour are obviously the keys to Holt’s power – ‘Outline Of A City Leaving’, for example, is understated and strangely comforting, while the distinctly chaste production on ‘Wilpena Pound Shop Blues’ makes for a wonderfully lucid and honest moment.
Steely-eyed Antipodeans may get the references to the motherland in tracks like ‘The Flying Gang’ and ‘Harold’s Tactical Withdrawal’ (a reference to the Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt who went for a swim and never came back). As for the rest of us…well, the music itself is more than enough reason to dive headlong into Holt’s world…and possibly never come back.