Since its advent at the turn of the millennium, the term “swag” has lent itself to plenty of manufactured personalities. We don’t hear “swag” much anymore, which is fine by us, since swagger ought to come naturally; it shouldn’t be too sophisticated.

You take one look at multi-instrumentalist Jared Mullins, who (in the best way possible) looks like a mix between Robert Plant and Big Lebowski‘s “The Dude”, and you know right away he’s a shining specimen of swagger. And appearances aside, Mullins’ project Holy Roller Baby – now half a decade strong – even refers to their spectrum-spelunking style of rock (heavy more often than not) as “primitive swagger”. HRB’s debut LP Frenzy was a ferocious feast that kept us pretty full for the pandemic’s first couple of years, but we sure were pleased to get a second round of standalone singles starting last March.

Well it turns out the Austin quartet’s already got another one in the can and ready to let loose in the coming months. They announced their next full-length Smile In Heaven (set for release August 23rd) last Friday with the record’s lead single “Speaking In Tongues”. We won’t recommend making out in the middle of train tracks for obvious safety concerns, but we will urge you to check out the Super 8 music video for “Speaking In Tongues”, since it’s such a powerful emotional accompaniment to what sounds like Holy Roller Baby’s Central Texas twist on Radiohead’s “Creep”, high contrast dynamics, unhurried grunge arrangement, impassioned vocal performance, and all. Rock on, Rollers. Rock on.

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