Holy Fuck: "I hope people will approach Congrats with an open mind..."

The Canadian noise merchants swanned back into our lives with "Tom Tom", lurching out of nowhere with this monstrous beast of a track. Then followed "Xed Eyes", a throbbing, pulsing floor-filler rife with burbling bass and clattering beats. Congrats offers a curveball, and Holy Fuck have refused to adhere to their own formula - from start to finish, this is something very different.

We spoke to the band's Graham Walsh about the follow up to Latin, how it was made, and whether we have to wait another six years for more.

Stream Congrats bellow, and read our chat after.

Tell us a bit about the new album.

It was a labour of love! It took us a while to make, but we made sure we made it perfect. We're really proud of it.

Was it in production the whole time you were away?

After we put out Latin we toured it for something like three years, so we probably started on the road, but it was shortly after we got off the road that we started properly. We took it up in chunks, over a few studio sessions and we would record, write together, demo things... it was a bit of a longer process than before.

It seems a bit mellower than what people might expect from a Holy Fuck record.

For sure! I would say so. My hope is that it goes in either direction – there are some songs that are a little more minimal and less saturated, but I do think that there are some that go even further and are angrier, edgier, darker...

How do you think fans that have followed you since day one will respond?

I hope that they'll like it. “Neon Dad”, which is this poppier thing, I hope people gravitate towards. I'm hoping people are more open these days – there's a lot of music coming out and there's easier access to all different things. People are exposed to more nowadays. I hope people will approach Congrats with an open mind.

Did you find yourself editing for longer periods than usual?

For sure. There's no right or wrong way to make music, but this one felt like we had to do it this way for these songs. We had to take our time and sit with things. We recorded a bunch of the songs and re-recorded them at a later date to get better takes. Over the last few years we've been holed up in studios working on this record... I've been enjoying living inside this sonic laboratory tweaking away.

You were away for ages – why were “Tom Tom” and “Xed Eyes” the tracks to announce your comeback?

There was a general consensus between us. “Tom Tom” was one that our camp (us, label, friends) were really gravitating towards as a good re-introduction – in my mind that one straddles the line of sounding like you'd expect a Holy Fuck song to sound, but also sounding new and refreshing, you know?

“Xed Eyes” is dancey. That one's become one of my favourite tunes, and our friend Chad VanGaalen was very happy to make a video for it, so logically it was the next one to be put out as it had this really cool video behind it.

Where do they fit into the album – is there a narrative? Or is it somewhat more patchwork?

I've always seen our albums as a quilt. This record, like our other ones, has a few different people mixing the songs, and they each bring their own sonic palette to the sound... our records can be difficult to sequence, but I like it like that. We've always approached it that way. The music's weird and, to use hand quotes, “experimental”. It's electronic. I think for it to be seen as this patchwork thing helps the record – it helps it not be just one footprint from start to finish.

It's been over half a decade since you released an album – how much has changed?

[Laughs] It feels great! It doesn't feel like half a decade. We put Latin out in 2010 and we toured it a hell of a lot, like almost three years. It's great to be back and I feel like we've all learned a lot and grown as individuals – three of the four of us had kids, so that was another reason to take a break. It's scary but exciting to be putting something new out, and people seem excited about the new record which is nice. We've got some more shows coming up as well which I'm looking forward to.

Holy Fuck have a history of writing on the road, so will we see you putting pen to paper during this next tour?

Definitely, definitely will. We made a conscious decision for Congrats to spend a lot of time and write at home, but coming up on this tour there's bound to be little seeds of ideas that we'll mess around with. I'm sure that'll happen, and who knows what'll come out of it.

What's after the shows? Another break or more touring?

We've got US tours in June and July, stuff in August too... we're working on European stuff in the fall, so we'll definitely be coming to the UK then. We're gonna do as much as we can, but like I said, three of us have kids now so there's different parameters these days. We used to go away for three months at a time, and that can't happen anymore, but we'll be doing as much as we can for sure.

Congrats is out today via Innovative Leisure. The band begin a North American tour next month.