At a time in society when connection appears to be at its most prominent, yet those within are more stranded than ever before, the art being produced must reflect reality rather than possibility.
For Lucas Woodland, such a call to arms lined up perfectly with the position that he and his band Holding Absence found themselves in. And with their fourth full-length offering, they have made something that speaks directly to the seemingly universal experience of loneliness in 2026.
Serving as a reference, and in many ways an update on the state of things, to Blur’s 1993 album ‘Modern Life Is Rubbish’, ‘Modern Life Is Lonely’ strives to capture the essence of what it means to be in a moment in time that is as complex as it is heart-wrenching captive. An introspective look at the assets and practices that have become part of the external every day, in some cases against our will or under our noses, that perfectly distils how it feels to be so connected yet so desolate. Less timeless and more timely, it is a record that strives to offer up solace as much as document how sensationally bizarre life is right now.
“This album was really the first time that I thought, ‘Let’s speak about the world that I live in, rather than the world that I am,” Lucascomments. “It’s no longer like a therapy class; a bunch of strangers are no longer turning up to Existentials Anonymous. In theory, everyone knows me now; they’ve heard my journey, but I’m still struggling in this big, bad world. It doesn’t matter how much enlightenment you can find within yourself; the world is still a scary place right now.”
For Lucas, it really is a shift in perspective, especially considering just how much of himself has been poured into Holding Absence over the last decade. Through the trilogy of albums - 2019’s ‘Holding Absence’, 2021’s ‘The Greatest Mistake Of My Life’ and 2023’s ‘The Noble Art Of Self Destruction’ – they have been able to travel the world, share stages with their heroes, and carve out the sort of legacy that you only get when you tap into a certain strain of emotion. But in bringing the curtain down on that particular chapter, it became imperative to start to channel things from a different source.
So, instead of pushing these feelings solely through himself, the band set out to craft an individual who could embody these experiences. That is Y4-BBO, as much a mascot for the band as a physical manifestation of the technological confusion that bolsters this era. His existence and presence allow the record to have a dual concept of sorts, with his own story enveloped within these extraordinary songs. Oh, and his helmet, seen on the album’s cover art, was made by the same people who built the Cybermen for Doctor Who, which, in itself, is an incredible dedication to detail.
Much of that question also extends to how Holding Absence sounds on this record as well. In stepping back and re-evaluating what this band actually is, they saw that it was less about noise and more about language. There is an infinite number of ways that they could be speaking, but, up till now, they hadn’t had the time or space to utilise them. So rather than stepping on the well worn path of yesterday, Lucas – alongside guitarist Scott Carey and bassist Benjamin Elliot – strived to showcase just how vibrant, vast and viscerally otherworldly they could be.
Pulling influence from the chaotic boldness of hyper-pop and ethereal tranquillity of lo-fi whilst still keeping plenty of post-hardcore grit at their heart, and taking inspiration from other boundary-destroying artists around them such as Julia Wolf and Paledusk, the result is as exploratory as it is emphatic.
Instead of sticking to standard linear songcraft, time was spent chopping up and changing parts of songs, slowing and reverbing as much as speeding up and smashing them together. Soft textures and pattering synths clash gleefully with euphoric bursts of kinetic energy in ways that feel both beautifully familiar and unfathomably fresh.
With Daniel Braunstein on production duties, serving as the first British band he has worked with, it is a combination of two monikers of the scene doing something completely different to what is expected of them.
And at a time when alternative music is being consumed and manipulated by technology, remembering what it means to dig deeper into the unknown has never been more crucial.
“We pushed ourselves in ways that we’d never had before, while maintaining what that language of Holding Absence is. We’ll be introducing people to new sounds, and that’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. But also, I think everything should inspire something, and with this record, as pretty famous victims of what AI is capable of, I wanted to do shit that no AI idiot would ever try and do, or even understand how to do. We’re at a new frontier where things are changing very fast, and we don’t know what this horrible sort of change entails for us. But where we are right now is essentially at a point of instinctive rebellion against that, and I’m intrigued about what comes next with that.”
And that mindset extended into the lyrical turns that Lucas chose to take as well. In attempting to look beyond what was happening in his head and his heart, he looked up at the skies, at the unequivocal vastness and unlimited potential of space. The stars above our heads are beautiful, yet daunting. The question of whether there is someone or something more than us out there is drenched in as much wonder as it is terror.
There is a duality to our existence, and the same sense of the pendulum swinging between two very different, but similarly critical, points. We are surrounded by so much hope, but that loneliness is just as close to everything we do, and such a juxtaposition played into the songwriting in a big way.
In being the longest that the band have worked on a record in their whole career, two and a half years of solid writing, demoing and crafting, it has allowed Lucas the chance to really pinpoint every aspect of what it means to exist at this pivotal moment in history, and then some.
“Over the last two and a half years, I’ve gone through so much internally in regards to hopelessness, loneliness and fear of failure, and I think this album really is like a resistance to that. There’s an awareness of self in here now. It’s almost cynical, but it is also realistic. I say this every time, but I truly mean it. This album could have just not happened. But I have such a deep yearning for this life and this art form of storytelling that I have to do it. I just can’t not.”
To be a decade in and still respecting and responding to that desire to keep on searching is something that doesn’t come easy, but it is what makes Holding Absence a band unlike any other. With ‘Modern Life Is Lonely’, they have expanded on everything they once were and done so in a manner that is as undeniable as it is unstoppable.
“I think that we are now in the arc in our career where we could fall the hell off or we could cling on for dear life, and sort of dwindle and fade away,” Lucas muses in conclusion. “Yet, I think we’ve done neither of those things. I think that we’ve been as rebellious as we’ve been respectful of our band, and we’ve managed to hold that line. I’m not a kid anymore, and I don’t want just to be doing the same stuff over and over again. So, it’s really special to me that we’ve nailed something very unique that is bigger than our band. Bigger than all of us.”
