Holy Youth Movement (HYM) are a 5 piece from Bristol taking inspiration from the likes of The Stooges, Primal Scream and Underworld. Their signature sound is a sonic onslaught of rock n roll combined with dance music. Produced by Jagz Kooner (Primal Scream / Sabres of Paradise/ Andrew Weatherall) it is a perfect amalgamation of what he best describes as “Electronic Rock n Roll”.
We managed to catch them early on in their career when they played live at Brighton Dome on 21st November 2019 where they were the support act for Primal Scream. Our account of their set read as thus:
HOLY YOUTH MOVEMENT – BRIGHTON DOME 21.11.19
A big shout out tonight must also go to Bristol based quintet Holy Youth Movement, who performed an absorbing handful of tunes during the sadly brief 25 minute set. Shame on those of you that were several deep at the bars, during their performance, you missed a good solid set.
Sadly there were only a fraction of the audience watching these guys perform. Did this put them off from going for it? Nah! The more songs they played, the better they got. There was the usual vocalist, guitar, bass and drums going on, but they had added synths, which worked an absolute treat. It gave them that extra dimension and tune four ‘Tranquilizer’, was powerful and reminded me of The Horrors meets The Cult, and the synths were adding that vintage Dr Who theme meets Hawkwind element. Their final number, the enchantingly titled ‘You Thought I Was Dead But Baby I’m Just Getting Started’ could arguably be seen as a rocky version of Blondie’s ‘Call Me’. At 8:25pm they were done! Missed them? A guy called Dan Leigh didn’t. He’s posted “Went to see Primal Scream and these guys were supporting and they’re amazing!”. So keep an eye out for ‘HYM’. I reckon they are THE ideal band to play The Great Escape 2020…hint! Hint! Lads!
Holy Youth Movement:
Tom Newman- Vox
Schmit- Synths
Babsy- Guitar
Rob- Bass
Willz- Drums & ting
Holy Youth Movement setlist:
‘Lizard King’
‘Game Show’
‘The Sky Is Crying’ (Elmore James cover)
‘Tranquilizer’
‘You Thought I Was Dead But Baby I’m Just Getting Started’
Not long after this Brighton Dome concert the world started shutting down due to covid, but Holy Youth Movement eventually bounced back when they dropped the final tune that they had played for us back in 2019 as a single, this being ‘You Thought I Was Dead (But Baby I’m Just Getting Started)’ which hit an unsuspecting world on 2nd August 2021. They closed that year with the release of ‘Tranquilizer’ and May 2022 signalled the arrival of ‘Information Is Beautiful’ arrived two months later, and a remix of it filled 2023. Now in 2024 the band are seriously back on the case and have dropped debut EP ‘The Shock Of The Future’ and today they posted this on their social media:
“BIG NEWS!!! It’s been a long time coming but we are thrilled to announce our first ever tour!!! You’ll be able to catch us at any of the listed dates and venues around the UK. Tickets will be going on sale on Friday”.
The dates in question will be happening in November and the band will be entertaining audiences in Bedford, Leicester, Liverpool, Cambridge, Norwich, London, Brighton, Southampton, Newport, Bristol and Exeter. The Brighton concert will be happening at Dust in East Street on Friday 22nd November. Tickets for this performance and all the others will go on sale at 10am this coming Friday 19th July from HERE.
