Holy Wave, Queen Serene, San Diego Freak Out DJs

Holy Wave play Soda Bar on Sunday, November 8, with Queen Serene and San Diego Freak Out DJs opening. It's a Sunday night show in Normal Heights, starting at 7 PM.

If you're not familiar with them, Holy Wave is an experimental dream-pop band that started in El Paso, Texas. They moved to Austin after seeing My Bloody Valentine perform in 2008, a show they describe as life-altering, and spent the years that followed building their own version of Texas psych—sweet melodies set against carefully constructed noise. Over four albums, they became a fixture of the international indie scene, playing festivals like Levitation and Desert Daze and sharing stages with Slowdive, Spiritualized, Hope Sandoval, and The Black Angels. They've picked up critical acclaim from Pitchfork, Consequence of Sound, and Paste Magazine along the way.

Their most recent record, Interloper, came out in 2020 and adds new layers to their songwriting. Between that and the three albums that came before, there's a fair amount of material to pull from for a single set. The sound they've built around—those melodies buried in noise—is exactly what they're known for, and it's what they've been refining since those early Austin days.

Queen Serene and San Diego Freak Out DJs open the bill, so the music starts well before Holy Wave takes the stage. Tickets are $22.66, and the whole thing kicks off at 7 PM on Sunday, November 8, at Soda Bar in Normal Heights.