UNCAPPED 006: HOLLOWS

Hollows is a breath of fresh air from the Windy City, a five-piece garage band crafting a twisted take on the classic 60s girl group sound. Driven by Maria Jenkins’ blaring Gibson G-101 combo organ, the band serves up sugary melodies with a dark undercurrent. Their songs are like the poisoned Halloween candy we were warned about as kids—sweet but deadly.

Born from a Craigslist ad that included the phrases “60s, funeral, girl group, Shangri-Las,” the Chicago band is making good on the promise of all of those seeds. While they are perfectly at home among their peers in the current garage scene, Hollows are influenced less by the usual gang of Nuggets MVPs than many of their contemporaries. The tough talking swagger of NYC’s Shangri-Las is a key component of their sound. Dara Puspita, the law-breaking girl group from Indonesia who turned conservative Jakarta on its head when they first appeared in the mid-’60s, is another antecedent. But Hollows specializes in an upbeat, lighthearted approach to that girl group sound.

Emerging from the same scene as fellow Chicago acts like CoCoComa and the Alright Alreadies, Hollows have begun to make waves around the US. Like Dum Dum Girls, Best Coast, and Vivian Girls, Hollows are taking many of the elements established by the Ronettes and their contemporaries and combining those with a punk-informed aesthetic. The biting lyrics and lo-fi recordings insure a bracing, contemporary edge to compliment the syrupy melodies and the swells of la-la-las, the perfect soundtrack for cutting up Pixie Stix with a switchblade.