2hollis: Star review – sounds like the internet and bound for stardom
2hollis looks like an avatar dreamed up in a K-pop factory: elven, almost CGI-generated. His fourth album, his first for a major, sounds like the internet: a pummelling mashup of hyperpop, post-Playboi Carti trap and tweaky club music also indebted to underground Swedes Drain Gang. Which is to say, the 21-year-old LA-raised singer-producer feels something like a male Charli xcx circa 2023 – a leftfield figure about to blow up on their own terms.
That's the overriding theme of Star, with songs such as Flash, Cope and Tell Me dedicating swathes of the record to manifesting success and worrying about over-exposure; a curveball acoustic ballad (Eldest Child) boasts how someone's parents 'don't know anything about me'.
There are reasons to be wary of Hollis Frazier-Herndon's charms: this pop mainstream-facing record is made up of the most obnoxious parts of loud genres; race cars zoom and big cats growl through the album's interstices (2hollis's 2022 debut was called White Tiger). But he has been SoundCloud-famous since his teen days as Drippysoup. His rise feels inevitable, and his production work includes ambient washes as well as dystopian bass; love songs abound, both banging (You, Burn, Nerve) and angsty (Girl).
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