Holy Forrest Drift Through Memory and Atmosphere on Always Heart-Space
Emerging from the inner-west of Sydney, Holy Forrest are part of the growing wave of Australian bands reshaping modern shoegaze with a more emotional, cinematic and immersive approach. Blending alternative rock, dream pop, shoegaze and touches of post-rock, the group create music built less around immediacy and more around atmosphere, texture and slow emotional release.
Released on May 15, 2026, Always Heart-Space feels like the clearest and most complete expression of the band’s identity so far. Dense, melancholic and deeply atmospheric, the album unfolds like a series of nocturnal landscapes where memory, nostalgia and emotional weight drift through layers of shimmering guitars and blurred melodies.
The band consists of Spencer Phung on vocals and guitar, Harshiv Banwait, Marco Stojanovik, Jordan Girardi and Zachary Bacon. Throughout the album, the band operate almost like a single emotional organism, each instrument slowly feeding into the next until entire songs feel submerged inside waves of sound.
One of the most striking aspects of Always Heart-Space is the way the album constantly balances softness and intensity. Ambient passages drift quietly beneath the surface before suddenly giving way to towering walls of saturation and reverb-heavy guitars. The transitions never feel abrupt though. Holy Forrest allow their songs to evolve gradually, patiently layering textures until the emotional impact arrives naturally.
The guitars are central to everything here. Rather than functioning as straightforward rock instrumentation, they move like shifting weather systems across the album. Reverb and delay stretch melodies outward into vast dreamlike spaces, while distortion adds both warmth and emotional pressure. Some passages feel almost weightless, while others collapse into overwhelming shoegaze density.
Vocally, the album often embraces distance and fragility. Spencer Phung’s performances remain partially buried within the mix, allowing the voice to blend into the surrounding atmosphere rather than dominate it. This creates a sense of emotional ambiguity that fits the record perfectly, where feelings arrive more like fading memories than direct confessions.
Several tracks also feature Zachary Bacon taking over lead vocal duties, particularly on Everything and Thickskin. These moments introduce an even more intimate and vulnerable tone, adding emotional variety without disrupting the album’s cohesion. Bacon’s softer vocal presence gives parts of the record an almost dream-folk quality beneath the shoegaze haze.
The rhythm section plays a crucial role in grounding the album’s more ethereal qualities. Jordan Girardi’s basslines move steadily beneath the swirling guitars, while Zachary Bacon’s drumming remains hypnotic and restrained, allowing tension to build slowly over time rather than exploding immediately. This patience gives the entire record a deeply immersive flow.
Produced, mixed and mastered by Clayton Segelov, the album achieves a beautifully expansive sound without losing emotional intimacy. Every layer feels carefully placed inside the mix, from the ambient guitar trails to the subtle melodic details hidden beneath the larger walls of sound.
There is a strong nighttime quality running throughout Always Heart-Space. The album often feels suspended between exhaustion and reflection, like wandering empty streets after midnight while memories quietly resurface one by one. Melodies drift in and out of focus like distant lights through rain-covered windows.
Listeners will likely hear echoes of bands such as Slowdive, DIIV and Nothing, alongside the more atmospheric side of contemporary post-rock. But Holy Forrest never feel trapped by influence alone. Their music carries a distinctly Australian emotional spaciousness, where melancholy and openness coexist naturally.
The album also reflects the current strength of Australia’s underground shoegaze and dream pop scene. Cities like Sydney and Melbourne continue producing bands pushing shoegaze into more expansive emotional territory, but Holy Forrest stand out through their ability to combine immersive sonic detail with genuine emotional sincerity.
What makes Always Heart-Space particularly compelling is its restraint. The band never force catharsis or overwhelm the listener with constant noise. Instead, they allow the music to breathe, unfold and gradually surround you. The emotional impact arrives slowly, almost imperceptibly, until the album feels impossible to escape.
With Always Heart-Space, Holy Forrest deliver a beautifully immersive record filled with blurred guitars, hypnotic rhythms and fragile emotional weight. A dreamlike shoegaze album that understands atmosphere not as decoration, but as emotion itself.
Like watching city lights dissolve into rain while old memories quietly return somewhere between midnight and sunrise.
© Thusblog
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