Holy Hail Issue #38

Independent Pleasure Club (Kanine)

By Abigail Bruley
Published: December 1st, 2008 | 12:00am

Lazy melodies, half-ass concepts, and witless, tween-ish vocals make up Holy Hail’s Independent Pleasure Club. As a young, itchy suburbanite, bandleader Cat Hartwell came to New York to follow her dream — evidently of starting a band that sounded a lot like every other New York band.

Much like the fair city itself — at least the parts populated by the worst kind of ex-suburbanites — what the music lacks in talent and originality, it makes up for in status. According to the band’s press materials, bassist

Michally Kaye is a “first generation American of Indian-Croatian descent and daughter of a Pentecostal preacher raised Jewish in Minneapolis,” and keyboardist Kevin Cooke is a “Bronx-born union rep.” Cred Points! If only their extremely cultured histories filled the tracks of Independent Pleasure Club instead of obnoxious cheers better reserved for pep rallies like in the track “Cool Town Rock” or in the femme-overkill of “Double Dutch.”

Holy Hail aren’t all bad, they carry a certain quiet talent in the art of posing for band photos; they also consider themselves avid political observers, peppering each track with “political undertones.” Supposedly, “Elemental” is a song about the Iraqi War and “Backwater” is the band’s Hurricane Katrina tribute, where, to their credit, they do mention water.

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