Hollow Howl are everything about an alternative band that I would put together if I was making my ideal alternative band.

They are experimental, willing to push the boundaries – something regular readers of the site will know always scores very highly with me – and they have influences that aren’t restricted by single genres or bands that all sound the same, but are a mish mash of styles, all served upon an original platter.

Off the top of my head I can hear Janes Addiction, Sonic Youth, the criminally underrated 16 Horse Power, Patti Smith, Siouxie and The Banshees…I could go on. Yet, as with all the bands and artists that I am discovering and falling in love with for the first time, these influences aren’t all that Hollow Howl are about.

What Hollow Howl are is the band that have, on their latest release Inner and Outer Terrain, produced the perfect soundtrack for a road movie that hasn’t happened yet.

This is the refrain that greets you as the desert stretches out for miles in wither direction and you gun the car engine, before spinning your wheels off into the distance. It’s the sound you hear when you’re going over the horizon and see the city appear before you, lit up like a den of sin against the black night sky. It’s the voices in the streets as you bustle from bar to bar, looking for your next fix. In fact, if they ever get around to turning Kerouac’s On The Road into a movie, I can’t think of any band better to capture the essence of the American Dream turned American Nightmare better than Hollow Howl.

Not everything needs pounding drums and screaming guitars in it to tell a tale, sometimes all you need is haunting melodies and the dark underside of America’s belly, and on Inner and Outer Terrain, Hollow Howl capture this perfectly.

Head to the Hollow Howl Bandcamp page and check out Inner and Outer Terrain for yourself.