Welsh Awen indie rockers, Holy Coves, return with their first new music release in 3 years; 2022’s award winning and critically acclaimed 3rd album Druids and Bards.
Falling Down, is the lead single from the highly anticipated 4th album, Hireath, and its the most personal song that frontman and the bands songwriter, Scott Marsden has written. Lyrically the song is a haunting tribute to his late uncle Tony, who drowned at the age of five off the coast of Cyprus. The tragedy, which rippled through the family for decades, sits at the heart of this song — a story of loss that became legend, and legend that became music.
From its opening moments, Falling Down feels like standing on the shoreline at dusk — the sound of reflection meeting the pull of the tide. The track opens, with reverb drenched guitars, that wash across a deep, rolling bassline, while measured, heartbeat-like drums pulse providing a hypnotic rhythm section, building into a sound that’s both expansive and intimate. There’s a clear sense of healing through sound — the song feels like an open letter to the sea, and to the ghosts it keeps.
Marsden’s songwriting has always leaned toward the spiritual and the elemental, but here he’s at his most exposed. Through shimmering guitars, atmospheric layers, and heartfelt vocals, Scott turns that pain into something truly beautiful. The lyrics speak directly to Tony — an imagined conversation across time, grief, and water. “How it broke their hearts and took away his dreams,” Marsden says, and you can feel that presence throughout the song. The production, lush yet raw, mirrors the push and pull of emotion: moments of stillness giving way to surges of feeling.
When the chorus arrives, it doesn’t explode but blooms. The guitars shimmer in layers, waves of sound overlapping and retreating, while Scott Marsden’s vocal sits right in the centre, vulnerable yet resolute, his tone capturing both the ache of loss and the fragile peace of acceptance. There’s a clear sense of healing through sound: this isn’t just storytelling, it’s exorcism by melody.
The soundscape draws influences from shoegaze and post-rock, (think early Verve and Spiritualized, but Holy Coves shape them into something distinctly their own — a kind of post-shoegaze soul music, where texture carries as much emotion as the lyric.
Holy Coves have never sounded more alive than they do in this moment of remembrance. “Falling Down” isn’t just a song about loss — it’s a song about endurance, about how the sea can take but also hold, and how art can turn trauma into light.
A stunning, soul-baring release from one of Wales’ most evocative bands.
Falling Down was played exclusively on the ThisIsTheMusic Rise Of The Indie Artists show on 23rd October. Listen again on Mixcloud.
Falling Down is released on Wednesday 29th October on all streaming platforms.
Pre-order the new album Hiraeth here.
Gigs
Thursday 30th October – Bristol, Exchange
Friday 31st October – Liverpool, Kazimier Stockroom
Saturday 1st November – Birmingham, Sunflower Lounge
Friday 14th November – Manchester, 33 Oldham Street
Saturday 15th November – London, Troubadour
Friday 28th November – Glasgow, Nice N Sleazy
Saturday 29th November – Aberdeen, The Tunnels
Friday 12th December – Leeds, Royal Park Cellars
Saturday 13th December – Wrexham, The Tap
Holy Coves Socials
ThisIsTheMusic 
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