It’s an exhilarating start between two huge-sounding, big-picture indie rock anthems in “Uru Buru” and “Evolver” and the writhing, taunting post-punk-revival scorcher “Flex It, Tagger” that connects the two. “Evolver” in particular twists and turns and refuses to settle into anything too comfortable–traits it shares with my personal favorite song on the record, “Yellow Brick Wall”. “Yellow Brick Wall” is perfect glitzy power pop in spite of itself, and instead of trying to top that peak, HLLLYH just get weirder throughout URUBURU (although, after a wonky middle, the big rockers come back towards the end with “(Guess Who’s) Back from the Spirit World”, “Black Rainbows”, and “Dead Clade”). In classic Mae Shi/HLLLYH fashion, URUBURU feels like it has multiple ending-worthy moments between the leaving-it-all-out-there avant-pop rock of “Dead Clade” and the surprise acoustic closing track “I’m Glad You’re Alive”. It’s business as usual for the forces behind URUBURU, which means that it sounds like anything but that.
“We wanted the album to interweave a few distinct narratives that coalesced differently depending on how closely you listened, like an audio version of Dali’s Lincoln in Dalivision.”
https://floodmagazine.com/198807/hlllyh-uruburu-track-by-track/
“Longtime fans of the Mae Shi know what to expect: call and response hollering, lyrics that explore heady topics from mortality to faith, glistening synth lines and, as the band calls its percussion, ‘spastic drumming.'”
https://www.spin.com/2025/07/the-mae-shi-are-dead-long-live-hlllyh/
“The new record, we wanted it to be like that record in that it would have a beginning and a middle and an end, but it’s less overtly about religion. It’s kind of more about cycles, vicious circles, and growing and evolving.”
https://www.talkhouse.com/hlllyh-and-brainiac-love-our-giant-tiny-universe
With 15 songs, Uruburu is a fairly long album by today’s standards, but HLLLYH can hold listeners’ attention with vivid lyrics that blur the edge of fantasy and reality. On Uruburu, there are references to the DIY scene in songs like “Dead Clade” (“We spilled out onto the street/From the bridge to the reservoir”), but it’s not an album stuck in the past. In fact, “Flex It, Tagger” (“flex the tags/burn the messages/let the men in black try to control this feeling”) could read like 2025 or 2005, take your pick. There’s a pop sensibility to HLLLYH that’s more pronounced than there was with The Mae Shi, particularly on “Uru Buru” and “Flex It, Tagger,” as well as a few more mellow moments, like “Trapped in the Song” and the album’s closer, “I’m Glad You’re Alive,” a cliffhanger of a song that will leave you wondering when the second HLLLYH album will be released.
“By the band’s own admission, ‘Dead Clade’ does sound quite a bit like the Mae Shi, chock-full of cacophonous drums, dizzying guitar lines, and shout-along group vocals that get playfully existential: ‘We’re not special, we’re just what’s left/ We’re not chosen, we’re a dead clade.’ I’m not mad about it one bit!”
https://www.stereogum.com/2303518/the-mae-shi-reunite-as-hlllyh-announce-new-album-uruburu/music/
“Glitzy, artsy, and overwhelmingly fun, this band wants to assure you that they’re not in it to win it. They’re just here to play, find themselves and be a little less miserable than everyone else who has just given up.”
“Uru Buru” is a triumphant-sounding album opener, veering into Los Campesinos! territory with the loud guitars, poppy melodies, and a healthy splash of cynicism: “We’ve been eating our own tail for as long as I remember/ We’ve been doing it wrong right from the start.” Meanwhile, “Cherry Blossom Color Season” turns the tinny-sounding original song into a bit of a chiptune-rock moment.
https://www.stereogum.com/2307140/hlllyh-uru-buru-cherry-blossom-color-season/music/
Informed by Twentieth century mystics like Gurdjieff, Crowley, McPherson and McKenna the new album titled URUBURU relates a tale of a hero’s journey to the spirit world and back but that hero could really be anyone willing to undertake the trials and tribulations involved. The new album is brimming with the raw exuberance, anthemic hooks and analog electronic weirdness that made The Mae Shi so appealing.
https://queencitysoundsandart.wordpress.com/tag/uruburu-2025-hlllyh-album/
Anybody who worked up a sweat during the Mae Shi’s art space or club shows in the end days will agree that, euphorically speaking, they felt like an “Endless High Five.”
https://buzzbands.la/2025/06/27/stream-greatest-hits-this-week-vol-344/
hlllyh.com 