Back in 2008, I had just started working at a digital ad agency on Brick Lane, in London, and I was literally across the road from the East London location of music institution Rough Trade. Every week on music release day, which back in 2008 was Monday*, I would head to Rough Trade. Once there, I would flip through the new releases, listen to what the staff had playing over the shop’s speaker systems, and check out the CD listening posts. Most weeks I probably bought two new albums and, more often than not, these were releases I knew little about.
One of those little mysteries was HLLLYH, from LA outfit The Mae Shi. The group’s thrashy, trashy garage art punk shimmered with candy coloured neon, an energising combo of dirt and bright electricity. In mainstream culture, The Mae Shi’s closest brush with commercial success likely came much later, when HLLLYH’s opening track, Lamb And The Lion, appeared in the underrated Covid-era straight-to-Netflix gem, The Mitchells vs The Machines.
The Mae Shi have been teasing the potential of a new album since 2022, with founding member Tim Byron traversing California as he worked to engage former members and reassemble the band. In time, Jeff Byron came back on board as producer and engineer, as well as singer and guitarist. Ezra Buchla, Brad Breeck, and Corey Fogel also all return. The resulting forthcoming album, URUBURU, which was originally intended to be The Mae Shi’s last, began to feel less like the closing of an old book than the opening of a fresh one.
All of which leads us here, to the release of the new single Dead Clade, not by The Mae Shi, but instead by HLLLYH, which represents a step forwards into something fresh, yet still connected to the group’s past. As a song, Dead Clade is unmistakably the product of the same minds as The Mae Shi, with chunky riffs, Day-Glo melodies and an abundance of chaos and sugar.
It is unclear how representative of the forthcoming album Dead Clade is, and indeed it is the oldest song on the forthcoming album, with origins all the way back in 2009. Regardless, it hints at the fact that HLLYH’s sound has a little less of the overdriven electronic synths of the Mae Shi, with a feel that is just a touch softer in aesthetic. Which is not to say the chaos nor energy are gone — indeed they are here in abundance — they are just filtered through a slightly more naturalistic lens.
I sound my age in writing this, but I’m unashamedly an album person, and I miss the days of prising open compact discs and vinyl, with a sense of excitement at the possibility of what they contained. I’m grateful to have HLLLYH back, even if the medium of delivery lacks the mystery of my physical copy of The Mae Shi’s HLLLYH.
*It moved to Friday in 2015 and, arguably, the release of music took a further step towards irrelevance.