Topology Gives Scott Holiday’s Guitar a Different Job
Anyone approaching Topology primarily for Scott Holiday’s guitar playing will certainly find it, but the instrument has a different responsibility here. In Rival Sons, Holiday’s guitar often carries an immediately identifiable force. Under the HOL1D4Y name, it becomes one element inside a wider field of synths, drums, vocals, atmosphere and recurring philosophical ideas.
That change is apparent from “Holotropic,” the album opener and latest single. Its fuzzed-out guitar does not operate in isolation. Vintage synthesizers and a deeply settled groove surround it while Holiday’s lyrics move through color, time, astral imagery and Paramatma. The accompanying performance video places the full band inside the same psychedelic visual world developed across the project.
Holiday’s self-production is central to the album’s character. He recorded at his home studio, playing guitar, bass, vocals and percussion, then built songs around performances from longtime collaborator Michael Miley and keyboardist Jesse Nason. Miley’s drums often began as improvisations that Holiday cut and reshaped, making spontaneous playing part of a carefully constructed final form.
Nason’s vintage Moog, Mellotron, Oberheim and Prophet synthesizers are especially important because they prevent Topology from being read as a guitarist’s showcase. Their textures create depth around Holiday’s riffs and help move the album toward psychedelic rock, progressive exploration, experimental pop and cinematic alternative music. The record is interested in atmosphere as much as attack.
That approach suits a project that began without a conventional album plan. Holiday entered his studio each day and generated fragments, allowing momentum to matter more than destination. The pieces gradually revealed a common language. Even after lyrics entered the picture, the instrumental foundation remained strong enough for “Constellations,” “CRISM” and “Love of Separation” to stand comfortably beside the vocal tracks.
The serious bicycle accident Holiday experienced during the album’s development changed his understanding of those fragments. Recovery gave him time to hear stories inside music he had expected to remain instrumental. Choosing to sing the material himself was therefore a compositional decision as much as a performance one. The voice became another texture through which the album could examine identity and transformation.
Topology is out now via Sacred Tongue Recordings / Thirty Tigers. “Holotropic” works as a useful introduction because it demonstrates the album’s central recalibration. Holiday has not abandoned the guitar vocabulary associated with his career. He has placed it inside a larger system where synths, rhythm, voice and visual art can exert equal gravitational pull.
