Hollows

Good female-centric retro pop from a Chicago band called Hollows...reviewed Monday at Dusted.

Hollows
Vulture
Trouble in Mind

Hollows match the bash and clatter of DIY punk to the tough-but-sweet vulnerability of girl-group pop. They are (mostly) girls, as it happens, and they do stick primarily to the love-and-lose-and-love-again playbook of classic 1960s pop. Still, even the most devoted homage to The Shirelles or The Supremes takes on an off-kilter vibe when performed by educated, empowered, modern-day women.


Hollows (don’t add a “the” unless you’re talking about a NYC-based roots rock band) come from Chicago. The two founders -- Maria Jenkins (organ and voice) and Emma Hospelhorn (bass) -- met via Craigslist, when Jenkins wrote some songs that didn’t fit her then-current outfit Parsley Flakes. Hospelhorn had, for a time, played flute in the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, but was looking for a rock outlet. Guitar player Meg Kasten got recruited by the band’s first drummer. Jason Davlantes, the current drummer and sole male in the band, came on later, as did back-up singer and percussionist Hannah Harris. There was a self-titled cassette-only debut on PlusTapes in 2011 that CoCoComa’s Bill Roe tipped in his Dusted Listed as “Equal parts girl-group melodrama mixed with goth-y garage ghoulishness.”

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