It’s being called an outcast’s anthem. Holy Wars just released a new single called “Cruel World” off of their Mother Father debut album. Many think Holy Wars are keeping their style in the 90’s, pulling inspiration and influence from rock stars like Liz Phair and Marilyn Manson. Although their music is quite different in many ways, Kat Leon from Holy Wars made a beautiful mix of Marilyn Manson’s music and Liz Phair’s style. Her music has more meaning packed into the lyrics. She wrote the song about Los Angeles. She explains that everyone wants a different thing in life. It’s a grass isn’t greener on the other side type of message. Leon’s metaphor is a lot more fitting for “Cruel World.” She compares the song to the story of a crow and a peacock. The crow longs for the life of a peacock, their beauty being the only thing it sees. The crow wants to be the beautiful, bright peacock until the very end. The peacock finally breaks down and enlightens the crow that they should be thankful for what they have. If you look at it from the peacock’s perspective, a crow isn’t locked in a cage. It’s spotlighting the fact that envy is never going to solve any problems. It’s also a sharp reflection of society where people need to be overloaded with self-admiration on social media. True happiness comes from just moving forward and accepting who you are. When asked to speak about the inspiration behind “Cruel World,” lead-singer Leon responded,
“Cruel World is a song that highlights the not so pretty parts of Los Angeles and the music scene and though this song was originally written much like a journal entry about my observing period in LA, it is a message that expands throughout the world and what I feel our society has become.”
With such a powerful rock song to ready their fans for an upcoming album, it will be exciting to see how Holy Wars interprets this song in video. It may feature Los Angeles since that is the setting that inspired the band to write this particular song.
They also released a video for their song “Back To Life” in the middle of September. That is the first song from the band’s debut album. It was directed by Erin Li. The stunning camera angles and interpretation of the song is visually intriguing. Once filming was completed for “Back to Life” the band was ready to go into post-production. The concept of the video was not a realistic view of society, or life. It’s a video that tells it’s own story. The song symbolizes a new beginning, or new way of thinking, after a huge life event caused the mind to be clouded with sorrow and grief. It’s hard to explain the emotions that people go through after loss, betrayal or sickness. After Kat Leon’s performance in this music video, and her editing abilities, she was able to show that life is about moving on, in time. She goes through the five stages of grief, a bigger stride than many people can handle in a short period of time. Then she finds herself with more possibilities, and opportunities. She moves forward as if she were the queen in a chess match; always one step ahead, strategically planning every move.
The entire album will be out on November 3rd. You can pre-order the record here.
Photo Credit: Boston Lynn Schulz
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