Athens, Greece-based Hollow Shift caught our attention at the beginning of 2026 through their EP, RELOAD, which had a touch of Northern England about it.
By Graeme Smith
I compared RELOAD to the likes of New Order and the Goth scene (born in Hull, don’t you know) and noted them as band I’d be looking forward to hearing more from.
Now the duo of Jessica Bell and Alex Zamparas is back, and their latest release was a good excuse to find out more about them.
“We wanted to explore the complexity of conflict and how it manifests in politics, culture, the environment, belief systems, and within ourselves,” says Bell when I ask her about the inspiration behind their new mini-EP, WAR.
The record is a conceptual three-track collection – Hephaestus, Nothing Dies Quietly, and Frequencies Will Stumble – all exploring the consequences of conflict and destructive cycles. It feels incredibly pertinent in a world seemingly on the brink of boiling over.
“Taken together, the three songs form a kind of dystopian triptych,” continues Bell. “They’re not offering solutions, but rather questions about where we are, how we got here, and whether we’re capable of changing course before the cycles we’re trapped in become permanent.”
Hephaestus is the only track released so far, giving us a taste of what the collection will offer. It opens with pulsating rhythms, ponderous electronic notes, and smoky, characterful vocals.
You really get the sense of conflict in it as the vocals and severe electronic beats compete for space. Bell’s fiery voice wins out, coming through strong and defiant in an overspilling chorus.
“Hephaestus is probably the most overtly apocalyptic of the three,” says Bell. “The song imagines a future scarred by human error, where fear, environmental collapse, and unchecked aggression have left lasting wounds.”
As for the other two tracks, Bell describes Nothing Dies Quietly as shifting towards “power, ego, and belief,” ruminating on symbols of power and instruments of control such as “crowns, saviours, heroes, and gods.”
Frequencies Will Stumble cuts right to the core of how these themes present themselves in the modern world. “It examines polarization, blame, and the endless cycles of accusation that dominate modern debate,” says Bell. “The repeated refrain, ‘no one’s in the right,’ isn’t intended as moral belief, but rather an invitation to question certainty itself.”
I had the sense that Hollow Shift were aiming for a sense of catharsis by tackling these weighty, almost depressing themes. Bell agrees. “One thing we discovered while writing these songs is that conflict is rarely as straightforward as we’d like it to be,” she says. “The deeper we explored the themes, the more we found ourselves asking difficult questions rather than providing answers.”
In creating WAR, the band are encouraging listeners to “think, not necessarily to agree with us, but to engage with the questions the songs raise.”
Hollow Shift has an interesting origin story. Bell grew up in Melbourne, Australia, raised by musicians. Earlier in her career, she fronted the Australian band spAnk before joining Keep Shelley in Athens, where she met Zamparas who was also part of the band.
“Keep Shelly… taught me the power of atmosphere and how to switch on a different ‘me’ at the drop of a hat,” explains Bell. “Not that I was pretending. But we all live different versions of ourselves at one time or another, and each personality is as real as the last one.”
As well as being in Keep Shelly, Zampranas has also been a “driving force behind projects like Expert Medicine and Fever Kids,” says Bell.
“What’s interesting is that neither of us is particularly interested in staying inside neat genre boundaries. We both grew up listening widely. Post-punk, darkwave, synth-pop, alternative rock, electronic music, and even heavy metal. It’s all in there somewhere.”
So that’s where the Northern England sound comes in. Bell found my comparison to New Order flattering. She cited them alongside Depeche Mode and The Cure as influences.
“But some of our most meaningful influences come from artists who aren’t necessarily the first names people mention, and who don’t always sound like Hollow Shift on the surface,” she adds, going on to mention Australian acts Def FX and X, as well as PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Tori Amos, and even M.I.A.
“And yes, I am willing to admit, Kylie Minogue and Madonna, too,” she laughs.
Reflecting on her origins and influences, Bell leaves me with an anecdote. “When I was in early high school, around fourteen years old, my music teacher told me I would never become a singer-songwriter… Since then, I’ve performed in multiple bands, released albums, toured internationally, written songs that have reached listeners all over the world, and spent most of my life doing the very thing I was told I couldn’t do.”
She’s keen to stress she’s not sharing the story to be inspirational, rather to make the point that creative careers are not built on certainty. “If you’re waiting for everyone to believe in you before you start, you’ll be waiting forever,” she says.
WAR is out now, and you can listen to it below.
Supported by Musosoup #SustainableCurator
