Miranda Faul is on some wildcard, genre-bending timeline right now, and “Holding Me Back” might be one of the most unexpectedly interesting singles I’ve heard all year.
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“Holding Me Back” starts off like your standard sad indie acoustic moment, then all of a sudden, the chord changes start pulling weird tricks. You’re hearing something that sounds like it got ghostwritten by a French jazz ghost. It veers into this chanson-ish swirl, then BAM — here comes this wide-angle, ambient film-score moment, and then guess what? Now it’s pop. Like, actual hooky, presentable, “put this in a festival montage” pop. What are we even doing here?
This song is doing too much — and it’s somehow doing all of it right. The transitions shouldn’t work. They do work. It makes no sense. I love it.
Strong 9.5/10
Miranda, what the hell. Keep doing exactly that.
Indie Boulevard Magazine 