Whether it’s the seductive croons heard throughout the two EPs he’s released since 2020 or the behind-the-scenes work on Cage the Elephant songs like “Metaverse” and “Over Your Shoulder,” Nashville-based singer-songwriter Vlad Holiday has all the pieces together for a breakout.
Contrary to what the recent single “I Don’t Wanna Party Anymore” with Kacey Musgraves might suggest, the Romanian-born artist is a 20th-century crooner born in the body of a bedroom pop artist who can successfully experiment with a unique lo-fi sound. With his debut record, My Favorite Drug, releasing November 15 via ONErpm, every song Holiday has released thus far has punctuated his artistry. With his latest offering, “Closer,” a smokey number full of rich layers, Cage The Elephant’s Matt Shultz can be heard lending his guest vocals. Shultz is also a co-writer on the track.
On his upcoming debut album Holiday said, “I’ve been releasing music for years, and a full-length album never really seemed like a thing I wanted to do. But as these songs were being written, I was noticing a pattern. Fragments of a story I had to tell. More for myself than for anyone else. It’s definitely one of those, ‘listen to it in order’ albums.”
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As Holiday’s genre reach expands, so does his emotional depth, often through vocal performances perfectly reflecting each song’s message. “Quit Playing Cool,” which happens to be his first single released in 2017, slowly entrances the listener thanks to the combination of a hypnotic guitar and Holiday’s desperate yet seductive voice. On the other end, “I Don’t Wanna Party Anymore” finds Holiday similarly showing off his vocal prowess and matching the slower-paced production, going hand in hand with the song’s fittingly woozy atmosphere.
But the song that perhaps best represents Holiday is “Phonograph,” at first an eerie track with sudden bursts of energy from an electric guitar. Much like an old-school crooner, Holiday pleads in desperation while the slowly rolling drums go from a sonic texture populating the background to the leading instrument as the song goes along. From the underlying dream pop to the lo-fi recording, “Phonograph” encapsulates the best of Holiday’s successful formula thus far.
This past month, he joined Cage the Elephant on their Neon Pill tour, which was named after a song he co-wrote with the band. That alone speaks to how renowned he’s become in the music scene, but it’s not far-fetched to say he could have reached this point in his career without collaborating with other artists, especially when he has numerous headlining shows lined up through November. When moving at that rate, it becomes a matter of when Holiday will expand and take the indie scene by storm.
Words: David Sosa
For more on new music and tickets to upcoming tour dates, follow Vlad Holiday on Instagram and his website.
UPCOMING TOUR DATES
September 14 – Nashville, TN – The Blue Room
October 6 – Austin, TX – Austin City Limits
November 3 – St. Paul, MN – Turf Club
November 4 – Madison, WI – High Noon Saloon
November 5 – Chicago, IL – Schubas Tavern
November 6 – Grand Rapids, MI – Pyramid Scheme
November 7 – Indianapolis, IN – LO-FI Lounge
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