3.6 out of 5
By Jamie Funk

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Hollowfade are James Brickey (guitar/vocals), Justus Brickey (bass) and Alex Whitley (drums). The band recently released a self-titled EP Hollowfade that contains four songs. Before we get into the music we need to talk about that album cover. It has a little of the classic album cover feel to it where a couple of dudes are looking in a different direction than the camera for no apparent reason. I was in high school in the ‘90s and remember going to buy CDs and that was the album cover for so many grunge and hard rock bands.

Hollowfade makes music that came from a very specific era. I remember it all too well. If you were a teenager in the ‘90s you will know that Nirvana around 1995 was the biggest band on the planet. After Kurt Cobain died the band became immensely popular. There were t-shirts, memorabilia and so much more.

It was a kind of popular that bands, especially rock bands, just can’t reach anymore. At any rate Nirvana absence left a vacuum for bands to fill. This was known as post-grunge and bands came in droves. Bands like Bush, Nickelback and Silverchair became popular but these bands really didn’t have the punk rock ethos that Nirvana had. It was hard rock and more pop oriented. My point is that Holowfade have a sound to my ears that is somewhere between grunge and post-grunge.

Take for instance the first song “Not Like You.” It’s hard not to argue this song isn’t straight post-grunge. It sounds very aligned with a band like Nickelback. The next song “My Asylum” you could argue sounds more like a band like Alice in Chains which is a band that's considered grunge and gets a lot more indie cred. If I really wanted to focus on the details “My Asylum” sounds more like grunge on the verse and actually changes to post-grunge during the bridge and chorus.

“Moving On (Instrumental)” felt like an outlier. This song is instrumental and you could argue has more in common with an artist like Joe Satriani. Last up is “Deceiving” which felt like another mix between grunge and post-grunge. I will point out they utilize a Peter Frampton talking guitar like effect.

​So there you have it. Fans of both post-grunge and grunge might want to check this out. Take a listen.