“At first we wondered, is this a Holy Holy song?” muses Oscar Dawson, production whiz and multi-instrumentalist for the perennially buzzy duo.

If it all ended for Holy Holy tomorrow, their legacy would already be cemented. Look at what's been achieved so far: there are gold and platinum records up on their walls, there are songs littered throughout recent Hottest 100 history, there are a countless run of sold-out shows in the books and there are four studio albums that have all reached the upper echelon of the ARIA album charts, landing this long-distance musical love affair between singer Timothy Carroll and guitarist/producer Oscar Dawson in prestigious company. Needless to say, things have escalated slightly since the pair met as teenagers whilst volunteering in Thailand, first clocking one another from across the room in a busy restaurant after noticing they each had a guitar in hand.

From their early indie-rock days to their latter-day widescreen expansion into dance-driven anthems, Holy Holy have done it all... at least, seemingly so. Perhaps, then, that is exactly why Holy Holy are such an exciting prospect: with every release, they are simultaneously broadening their horizons and subsequently adding to their living, breathing legacy within 21st century Australian music. If their fifth album Cellophane has anything to say about it, Holy Holy are far from finished.

Although the band's latest offering is no less ambitious than studio albums in their back catalogue, both members of Holy Holy are quick to note that Cellophane is the sound of the duo shedding their inhibitions and alleviating themselves of the weight of expectation. If 2021's Hello My Beautiful World was Holy Holy running forth into the great unknown, Cellophane is a free-fall. “In the past, this band has had a really considered approach,” says Carroll. “This time, I feel like Oscar and I have made an album where each song is really allowed to be exactly what it wants to be. We didn't force anything. I was really excited about the idea of letting go of being concerned of what other people would think, and really just trusting ourselves.” Dawson agrees: “Music can be counter-intuitive sometimes,” he muses. “Sometimes when you don't work as hard, better stuff happens because of it. A lot of this album is frictionless, and that's where the magic is.”

Much of the spirit of Cellophane as an album stems from its collaborative nature. Though Hello My Beautiful World also featured several guests (among them CLEWS, Queen P and The Presets' Kim Moyes), there are a whopping seven tracks on the album that include features – the most on any Holy Holy album by a considerable margin. You have already heard a grab-bag of these in the lead-up to Cellophane's release: The frenetically-paced 'Messed Up' with rap sensation Kwame, and the swaying RnB-flavoured 'Neon St' with Ethiopian-Australian neo-soul wunderkind Medhanit – both of whom recently wrapped up an extensive national tour in support of Holy Holy – as well as the buoyant dance infused ‘Pretend To Be’ featuring production flourishes from Bag Raiders, and the charged 80s montage-scene pop of 'Ready', with Tasmanian electronica duo Sumner coming through with the assist. 

There is plenty more where that came from, too: Gumbaynggirr multi-hyphenate Tasman Keith, and Perth newcomer Darcie Haven get in on the action, while on the international front there are collabs with UK upstart Tia Carys and Swedish bedroom-pop artist Many Voices Speak. Some of these names you might know, but more tellingly there are some you might not – and that is exactly why Holy Holy wanted to use their platform to get these talents out to more eyes and ears.

“We formulated this idea of Holy Holy as this kind of songwriting factory,” says Carroll of the album's extensive collaborations. “What would happen if we got a day or two with all of these really talented and really interested people, wrap around them and create something cool together? We really enjoyed the process, and we loved getting to know all these different artists. It became like a family, and it creates a tapestry that's so rich and so exciting to us.” As for Dawson, he views the album's extensive features list as something that could have only come at this exact point in Holy Holy's career – it's a product of the duo's decade-plus partnership, and the sense of confidence that has come with it.

“I don't think we would have been ready if we tried something like this on an earlier album,” he says. “We've made a lot of progress, especially as songwriters – we've been really able to narrow in on a musical idea and get a real feel for a song. After making most of Hello My Beautiful World on our own because of COVID, it was so nice to be able to get together with people in a room and make music together again. The stuff we did with Kwame and Tasman just wouldn't have been the same if we weren't bouncing ideas off one another, shooting the shit and having fun. If I were to unify all of these collaborations, I'd say that they all came really easily.”

For those that first heard Holy Holy in their guitar-driven and folk-oriented early days, the sound of Cellophane might come as a shock to the system. It is the farthest the duo have strayed from their origins yet, full of AutoTune-driven vocal runs and an electric undercurrent that surges through each blood-pumping cut. But for Carroll and Dawson, Cellophane is less about pop and more about a different P-word: Perspective. “Cellophane is brightly-coloured plastic, and in one sense it's basically just throwaway crap,” says Dawson. “At the same time, though, when you hold it up to a light it can actually be kind of beautiful. For us, naming the record after it was about the juxtaposition between music that's organic and grounded in emotion and music that's computer-generated and danceable.”

So, dear listener, it's time to wrap yourself up in Cellophane. Hold it up to your own pool of light, paint your own picture with it and say hello to your beautiful world within it. It's an album that calls for love – true love – and that message only grows stronger with every spin. “It's an album that rewards deep and repeated listening,” concludes Carroll. “That might not seem like the case at first, but from my own experience with Holy Holy fans they've really come to intertwine our songs with memories from their own lives. I'm looking forward to seeing what our fans discover in this album, and how they connect with its story.”