The Black Hollies

The Black Hollies, originating from New Jersey, surfaced in 2005 by merging garage rock styled after the 1960s with psychedelia and raw soul textures. Three members of the hard rock band Rye Coalition first assembled the group as a side project before it expanded to a quartet that secured a contract with Brooklyn's Ernest Jennings Record Co. Their self-produced debut album Crimson Reflections appeared in 2006, featuring Justin Angelo Morey on vocals and bass along with guitarists Herb Wiley and Jon Gonnelli and drummer Scott Bolasci. Extensive touring followed to promote the record, including shows with fellow garage rock revivalists the Fleshtones, and the musicians began adjusting their wardrobes to echo the music's vintage aesthetic. After Bolasci departed, Nick Ferrante took over on drums, prompting a return to the band's 1960s mindset on the 2008 release Casting Shadows. The following year marked their initial decision to record in an outside studio, which produced the atmospheric, organ-fueled Softly Towards the Light issued in early October. Work on the subsequent album started yet those sessions were soon abandoned. Morey spent a couple of years creating demos, leading the group back into the studio in 2012 with an initial goal of tracking 20 songs across three weekends. The next twelve months instead involved repeated additions, subtractions, and revisions by the band members—chiefly Morey—until the desired sound emerged. Less rooted in garage rock and drawing instead from noise rock of the 1970s represented by Can and the 1990s represented by Spacemen 3, the quartet's fourth album Somewhere Between Here and Nowhere came out in late 2013.