Every musical generation blames the one before when the frustrations of a passé scene come knocking on the door, but amid those finger-pointers are scene sculptors and rock shakers such as The Holy Fire, a quartet just emerging from the great state of Michigan to lift the spirits of a generation sometimes too busy gazing at the spines of its Shiner and My Bloody Valentine discs to recognize that sometimes innovation can be the sincerest form of flattery - and that’s a realization that the members of The Holy Fire have made.

The quartet has some familiar arrows in its quiver - a certain affinity perhaps for Replacements-like guitar parts (the fine “Sleeping, Screaming Boy”) and here and there a dash or two of the aforementioned My Bloody Valentine - and some less familiar ones as well (you might swear you hear touches of Simple Minds or The Alarm here and there), but in the end, The Holy Fire earns major props for being itself, having the sense to move a little bit ahead of the trends and the sensibility to make it all work. This writer may very well have just found a new favorite band. – Jedd Beaudoin