Since first rising up in the mid-1990s alongside the UK big-beat battalion, Belfast-bred DJ/producer has proven so adept at composing faux soundtracks to non-existant films, he's now the go-to guy for composing real soundtracks to real films, earning a permanent place on Steven Soderbergh's speed-dial after his excellent work on 1998's Out of Sight. But where soundtracks usually play a tangential role for most artists moonlighting in the medium, in Holmes' case, they serve as logical extensions of his own artist albums. Sure, Holmes' productions for Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven series were decidedly more congenial than his own D&B-noir odyssey Let’s Get Killed (1997) and blaxploitation masterwork Bow Down to the Exit Sign (2000), but they're all built from the same rudiments, interweaving snippets of dialogue to set a gritty, mean-streets ambience that's leavened by some good-time funk-soul grooves (lest we forget it was Holmes' use of Junkie XL’s electro-Elvis overhaul "A Little Less Conversation" in Ocean's Eleven that set the stage for its subsequent Nike-commercial ubiquity). And out of the Vegasized vibes of his Ocean's Eleven work, Holmes has gone on to further indulge his retro-funk fetish with his side band the Free Association.
But any cinephile appreciates a good surprise twist, and in contrast to a career discography that's reshaped Afro-Angloamerican music of all forms-- soul, funk, hip-hop, jazz, drum'n'bass-- Holmes' first solo artist album in eight years points to primarily European rock sources: the narcotic pop of the Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, and the Stone Roses; the swirls and swells of Spiritualized; the motoriked glide of Neu! But more so than its content, The Holy Pictures really differs from Holmes' past work in form: There's no filmic framework or found-sound dialogue linking the compact, 10-song tracklist together, and where Holmes once farmed out the vocal duties to celeb guests like Bobby Gillespie and Jon Spencer, for the first time he claims them for himself.
All of this would reinforce Holmes' assertion that The Holy Pictures is a more personal work inspired by his Belfast upbringing and the passing of his mother in 1996. But rather than revealing any personal thoughts, Holmes simply revels in youthful abandon: For its first half, The Holy Pictures vividly approximates the decadent, ultraviolet-lit scene at a student-disco circa 1990, with a steady clip of head-rushed, stoned-immaculate pop songs ("I Heard Wonders", "Love Reign Over Me"-- the latter not a Who cover) that showcase Holmes' relaxed voice, a breathy sigh that faithfully adheres to the Jim Reid/Ian Brown flower-punk tradition. Even tracks that seem to initially conform to Holmes' film-noir track record eventually burst with kaleidoscopic color-- at the outset, the instrumental "Story of the Ink" mines the same nocturnal desolation as Primal Scream's Trainspotting theme, until a tremloloed electric-guitar riff and intensified frequencies gradually send the song aloft in a psychedelic splendor, as if timed for when the ecstasy sets in.
But the deeper you venture into The Holy Pictures, the more distant these euphoric feelings become, and the album starts to feel like something more substantial than a blissed-out shoegazing nostalgia trip. After getting in the last of his Krautrock kicks with "Melanie"-- whose Stereolabby hypno-rock pulse is quickened by an ascendant chorus of wordless harmonies-- Holmes steers The Holy Pictures into a triptych of serene instrumentals that seek to recapture a certain back-to-the-womb comfort (hey, one of them's even called "Birth") and prove an affecting come-down to the preceding songs' sunglasses-at-night swagger; the closing tribute to his parents, "The Ballad of Sarah and Jack" is The Holy Pictures' simplest track but arguably its most absorbing, an unspeakably somber piano instrumental that could pass for a backing track from some lost early 70s Neil Young session. In the end, despite the absence of Holmes' favored motifs, The Holy Pictures turns out to be very much a soundtrack-- but one in which heart and mind prove to be as inspiring a source as any script Hollywood throws at him.
