“Rising from the ashes of folk duo Brown Bird after the death of creative partner and husband Dave Lamb, MorganEve Swain’s The Huntress and Holder of Hands is both a vehicle to explore grief in its full spectrum of emotions and a way to continue the spirit of its predecessor.” So we wrote back in May when previewing the project’s latest album Babylon. An emotionally complex album which, as we continued, manages to “[hold] space for anger, confusion, sadness and compassion, as well as an inherent sense of hope that’s built into the very fact of its existence.”
After single ‘Doctrine‘, a politically charged track “confronting,” as we described, “the corrupt and violent present without forgetting ideas of redemption and sanctuary too,” The Huntress and Holder of Hands shared ‘Beasts We Are’. The single was in many ways an embodiment of the project, displaying how Swain, as per the huntress and hand holder of the band’s name, is able to weave together conflicting emotions. Fury and fondness might ostensibly seem contradictory frames of mind, but on Babylon they are two parts of the same whole. A fact elevated by the very sound of the record, where delicately layered strings and vocal harmonies are matched with propulsive rock energy and often an almost sludgy weight. It’s the sonic equivalent of the record’s emotional state, which both loves humanity and despairs at its hubris and greed.
To celebrate Babylon‘s release, The Huntress and Holder of Hands have now shared final single ‘Timbre Inaudible’. Simmering with a stark and brooding atmosphere, the song is one of the album’s more explicit explorations of grief, tracing the thematic threads right back to the origin of the project and Swain’s own personal experiences. But rather than painting loss as a dark mass around which we are trapped in orbit, the track instead treats it as something of an engine. An active experience rather than a passive one, capable of driving us forwards and opening new doors. As though grief, because of its universality, possesses an unique kind of potential. Something which can unify us, steel us and prepare us to fight back against the worst features of this world.
Babylon is out now and you can get it from The Huntress and Holder of Hands Bandcamp page.