Holding Absence: A Work Of Art In The Making

The last few years have been a wild ride for Welsh emo/post-hardcore heroes HOLDING ABSENCE; their second album, The Greatest Mistake Of My Life, released during the pandemic, but the second restrictions lifted, it felt like the band who had previously been called “ones to watch” were everywhere, racking up multiple US tours in a single year even. Since then, they’ve been hard at work on its follow-up, pouring the lessons they’ve learned as a band and as people, tying off the conceptual narrative spanning from their self-titled debut to now.

When we sit down with vocalist Lucas Woodland, the band have just tied off the TGMOML campaign in stunning fashion; two sets at Cheltenham’s 2000trees, one in The Forest Stage with some rarities, and a triumphant debut on its main stage in front of a packed field. “We always want to give our fans the best version of their experience,” he smiles, “and we’re throwing ten more songs into the big pool now! Who knows when we’ll play some of them next?” Those ten songs form third album The Noble Art Of Self Destruction, a triumph of an album that draws from their past as much as it looks forwards.

“We had a very grand idea for the third album,” Lucas explains, “a 15-track kind of idea. Then me and Scott (Carey, guitar/backing vocals) had a chat when we said, ‘we’ve got more in us to write another brilliant, all-killer no filler album’ and we wondered, do we risk 15 tracks people might enjoy less? Or do we pour hearts and souls into another 10 brilliant songs, and see what happens?” They chose the latter – and arguably, the album is better for it. Richly detailed, textured and a strong conceptual narrative all tie the album together to make arguably, the strongest HOLDING ABSENCE record yet.

Glancing at the album art, you’ll notice the figure depicted is criss-crossed with gold lines; a very deliberate choice, drawing directly on the Japanese art of kintsugi (“golden joinery”), a way of repairing broken pottery that emphasises the breakage and repair, rather than disguising it. That’s fundamental to the entire album; “it’s a really interesting, enriching philosophy. The moment I knew I wanted to use it was when I drew the parallel between marble statues and kintsugi as things that are broken to become more beautiful,” as Lucas tells us.

The marble statue is openly referenced at the end (Angel In The Marble) but it’s a running theme throughout the album, such as Scissors, that references cutting away parts of yourself that no longer serve you. As Lucas tells it, “we often view growth as an addition, but sometimes it’s more about the liberation we feel when we let go of things as well. The album isn’t entirely about that, but it’s about coming to grips with the fact that it’s okay to change.” In fact, the album acts as the closing chapter of a trilogy starting with 2019’s self-titled, surrounding the changes we go through in life.

Loosely, the three albums are about love (Holding Absence), loss (TGMOML) and what’s left behind, and how people move on (The Noble Art Of Self Destruction). “I think it’s also a perfect mixture of our old and our new; this is the kintsugi album of HOLDING ABSENCE’s career,” he smiles, “it’s everything we’ve done in a beautiful package.” In fact, it’s a package broad enough to contain both their more post-hardcore roots and their huge, anthemic emo singalongs – often right next to one another. Case in point, the cathartic Scissors shifts immediately into the lovelorn Honey Moon.

“That’s one of my favourite moments on the album,” Lucas smiles. “They’re polar opposites! I think, interestingly, if Honey Moon were on the self-titled or Scissors was on The Greatest Mistake Of My Life, they would stick out so much. It’s really cool that we’ve created such a big space for these songs to go one after another.” The golden joinery is on display throughout; as they flow from one end of their sonic spectrum to another, encompassing all those themes of personal change and repairing yourself after love and loss.

Not only that, but it’s a huge statement of intent from the band. “We’re planting our flag in the ground and saying, we’re really good at writing albums,” he proclaims, talking of keeping some surprises close to their chest like the on-album sudden switch from False Dawn to Scissors, where the singles have extra seconds of silence added to keep the surprise. “We made an effort to just fucking run straight in with it. I’ll never forget listening to THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA’s With Roots Above when Sassafrass goes into I Hate Buffering. For the longest time I thought they were one song, and it’s something you only get in the album format.”

That care and attention extends to the artwork itself and the presentation; a stamp of the band’s name, the album title and a 3/3 handwritten around the art itself. “I know it’s a bit scary at first [to see the 3/3] but it’s just to try and bookend it,” Lucas clarifies, given there’d been some online consternation that this was the third and final HOLDING ABSENCE record. “I like to think of these three albums as the beginning of our band, I’ve been referring to this as the end of the beginning.” So clearly there’s more to come, and of the stamp he explains that “we’re writing an album every two years, so I can’t lie and say this hasn’t become a professional thing, but at the same time I never want people to think we’ve lost our personality, so the stamp and handwriting are so important.”

Another thing they’ve always been keen on, as Lucas happily admits that it’s no secret MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE are his favourite band, is a visual identity where the colour palette of the artwork spills off the page and onto them. “It looks like this album is poured all over us,” he grins of their new stage getup that features blue hues, creams and the occasional hint of gold. “It’s so important to die by your art, and the idea is that we’re creating something; like when you go into a garage and the mechanic has oil all over his arms. This album and our new clothes feel like the music version of that.”

From Scissors’ tale of cutting away parts of yourself that no longer work, to A Crooked Melody that grapples with imposter syndrome, self doubt and failure, to Angel In the Marble, which tops their previous closers with its show stopping final line of “I am a work of art in the making” that references the entire album’s themes in one phrase, it all adds up to an album that’s both the sum of its creators’ journey so far, and still just scratching the surface of their potential. Yet it still feels, as Lucas describes it, like the end of the beginning. HOLDING ABSENCE have crafted their finest work to date, one that examines a key part of what it means to be human, and offers itself to the world, cracks and all.

The Noble Art Of Self Destruction is out now via SharpTone Records.

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