THE HOLY KISS is practiced on the basis of SPIRITUAL RELATIONSHIP

1919: Hand in hand stroll Nick Ott and Dawn Hillis down grey shoreline, miserable both over the violent and bloody demise of a stillborn, terminally ill child. Through crashing waves, rising tide and storming sea mist they hold on... scarves over faces, determined to reach the only lit house of hope visible upon a rocky sea cliff. A siren's song in the distance...

1932: Calling then crawling from the murk and mire upon the bottom of said sad ocean, Matty Rue Morgue shines light and foghorn on grey horizon. A long handshake and quick conversation over Irish coffee reveal their common love of barrelhouse rollin', ragtime pianists, dark humour, drunken melodrama and the loud garage rock. NICK has a strong hand in ivory keys and animal skins, DAWN, as medic you keep the pulse and blood pressure on low end, hand on clock and vein. MATTY RUE can glide his golden slide up six strings of anything, and now through visions of freedom knows the call and response to that old sad siren's song....

1965: They are now family.

2005: They are now family under The Holy Kiss

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The Holy Kiss S/T

Eerie Tenderloin-blues with a drunken swagger, lazy rhythms and drawling vocals. The Holy Kiss would not have become the bug in the ear they've managed to develop into if they were just served up a predictable mix of neo-blue garage rock; they are a far cry from the current set of indie rockers appealing to the Lomax recordings for credibility. They have their own sound of unease - eruptions of melancholic fury and noir-ish slide guitar ferocity; t's an intoxication of ansinthe rather than whiskey. They evoke an uncanny and confused imagery, like a soundtrack to a David Lynch movie, and make for appropriate companions to bands like the Bellmer Dolls and Lion Fever. This release captures their rare, out of print, and hard-to-find early recordings, most available on CD for the first time.

CD $12 ORDER HERE

The Holy Kiss - The Holy Kiss

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Video:

  • Holy Kiss- Black etc by Dion Oliver

  • the Holy Kiss live at the Cake Shop in New York

PRESS

Considering their funereal garb and dark preoccupations, THE HOLY KISS seem to have a lightness of spirit and devil-may-sorta-care sense of humor that belies their collective age of 87 (they're all between 25 and 35) and some fearsome, cacophonous blues-rock performances, shows that draw Nick Cave and Crime and the City Solution comparisons and have turned clubs like Rickshaw Stop into slightly spooked, rocked-out sock hops.
(Matty Rue Morgue) The Holy Kiss vocalist has written most of the band's songs, filtering ealy blues through 'crystals or whatever', he drawls. 'Just to fuck with it a little bit.
Bay area threesome The Holy Kiss mix up a musical potion of young (fleeting) love, old blues, goth drama, and dark thoughts.
Kimberly Chun, S.F. Guardian

Bay Areans the Holy Kiss began on a dissonant indie note and transformed slowly into the bastard child of the Birthday Party and Black Heart Procession. No complaints: While front man Matty Rue Morgue (possibly not his real name) lacks Nick Cave's icy moan, he possesses a similar lyrical knack — a simple line like And if I had my way/I'd have my way with her, juxtaposed against the group's aggressive sound, came off as a poignant moment amid chaos. Another Holy Kiss highlight was drummer Nick Ott (probably his real name), looming like a giant over an elfin drum kit while assaulting the skins feverishly enough to risk spontaneous combustion.
Tatiana Simonian, L.A. Weekly

The Holy Kiss's Matty Rue Morgue channels the grit and grace of Tom Waits through the body of a modern-day Lestat.
John Lombardo, S.F. Bay Guardian

San Francisco trio the Holy Kiss makes a dark and sweetly discordant murder-ballad-inspired racket that's perfect for conjuring the limbo-treading spirits of the cheats, crazies, drunks and other societal castaways the band likes to sing about in its shadowy, Dickensian ditties.
Bill Picture, San Francisco Chronicle

It's hard not to notice a band with a name like the Holy Kiss � the moniker is taken from scripture that describes greetings between snake-handling priests. Appropriately, the band dishes out gothic punk sermons, and blues-amped rock... Frontman Matty Rue Morgue yowls in a good imitation of Nick Cave's despondence, which contrasts with the group's theatrical high-octane bash. They're loud, chaotic, and rarely anything less than spectacular on stage.
(NVB) of Flavorpill SF

The Holy Kiss take the Oscar here, for a performance that combined the honesty and rawness of the blues with the complexity and restraint of indie rock.
West Coast Performer Magazine