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Wedding planning can take the form of everything from no plan at all (Vegas chapel) to years in the making (dove release, choreographed first dance, etc.). While we’re not sure where Holy Pinto’s Aymen Saleh falls on the nuptials spectrum, we can say with certainty that his process for creating new album Wedding Season was the more meticulous kind.
By the time the full record hits Sept. 14, it will have been more than five years since Saleh started work on the project. And those who think they have a handle on Holy Pinto’s sound to this point might see it in a new light after this chapter, which Saleh himself called “the fullest expression yet of [my] instincts as a songwriter, arranger and thinker.”
Later in his notes about the album, the Centerbury-raised and Milwaukee-based artist mentioned Death Cab for Cutie as one of the album’s sonic touchpoints, noting their “clarity and emotional plainspokenness." Both are all over new single “us, forever,” the track we’re helping Saleh debut today.
Crisp and clear instrumentation rings out in the early stages, particularly guitar licks that step right up to the edge of darkness before holding their position. It’s not dour by any means, but there’s a heavy dose of realism in a song inspired by “the intoxicating cycle of addiction and the ways we get stuck within it,” Saleh said. “The familiar fireworks, once alluring and exciting, now simply explosive — or even dull.”
He brings in those pyrotechnics in the track’s final lines, which somehow put a nice bow on things despite the two very different paths laid out in front of this couple:
Fireworks each night
You can be my favourite vice
And we can stomach this forever
I don’t want to die
Or live like this forever
Let’s belong to ourselves
In his description of the full Wedding Season album, Saleh uses phrases like “meticulously assembled” while noting the “strange little details” woven into its hefty 18 tracks. You can hear that care and creativity throughout “us, forever” (and the other singles he’s shared so far), which has us looking forward to hearing how it all comes together when the record gets released in its full form Sept. 14.
If you just can’t wait for the mid-month drop, Holy Pinto will hold a slightly unconventional release party that actually precedes the album’s debut. You can join the celebration Sept. 5 at the Vivarium, with Moonglow, Stray Beaut and Waterspouts in support.
