total tommy’s Jess Holt takes us track-by-track through her intimate, unfiltered, and brutally raw debut album ‘bruises’ – a grungy and gritty coming-of-age record that aches inside and out as the Sydney-based artist bares her full self, scars and all.

for fans of Ethel Cain, Wolf Alice, Wet Leg, Julien Baker

Stream: “Plus One” – total tommy

Not into microdosing, want the whole amount. Call in a distraction, ’cause I could do without the comedown…

Intimate, unfiltered, and unapologetically intense, bruises is an undeniable – and irresistible – beast of an album.

But before diving into total tommy’s debut LP, it’s important to understand why singer/songwriter Jess Holt named herself ‘total tommy’ in the first place – and even more importantly, what that moniker means to her.

Previously making sun-kissed, dance-friendly indie pop music under the alias Essie Holt, the Melbourne-born, Sydney-based artist took a sharp left turn earlier this year when she reintroduced herself with a new name and a dark, shoegaze-inspired post-punk sound.

“My parents were gonna call me Thomas if I was a boy, and I’ve always been a bit of a tomboy and thought it suited me better than Jess,” she explains. “And ‘total’ – because I’m obsessed with symmetry, so I needed the syllables to match ‘tommy.’”

“For me, it means a lot of something, and that’s what I am – all or nothing. Zero moderation here.”

This sentiment holds especially true for holt’s first full-length album as total tommy: A bold, brash, brutally honest coming-of-age record, the aptly titled bruises aches inside and out as Holt bares her full self – scars and all – in twelve impassioned, vulnerable, and raw songs.

So what if we’re late to start the day
Hey I love the things you say
When we’re naked under covers
Closed all the shutters

You got me coming undone
I wanna try on your plus one
It’s how we break the tension
Every time we get it on
I wanna make you scream until you —

– “Plus One,” total tommy

Released November 29^th, 2024 via [PIAS] Recordings, bruises is a breathtaking triumph of a debut, as well as a spellbinding introduction to Jess Holt’s total tommy.

“total tommy started when I moved cities, came out, and spent time properly getting to know myself,” she says. “Parts of my brain got unlocked that I’d never been able to tap into before, and with that I quickly got to learn a lot about who I was. I partied so much with new queer friends, fell in love, made mistakes, and wrote music to make sense of it all.”

Holt first ‘launched’ total tommy at the top of this year, and has spent the past eleven months dazzling audiences the world over through an exhilarating array of dreamy and dramatic alternative rock reveries. Her raw, scuzzy, emotionally charged guitar-driven music has been hailed as a neo-bedroom pop return by some, and as an homage to grunge-era legends like Garbage and (her personal heroes) Hole by others; whatever you call it, there’s no denying the fact that the sound she and producer Mark Zito (of Fractures) have crafted together has done its job to get people talking and listening.

For Holt, bruises is brutal.

Many of its songs come from a particularly rough period of tension, turmoil, growth, and self-discovery, capturing the friction she felt within as she experienced – or rather, endured – several major life changes, more or less all at once.

“This record is collection of songs from the last three years of my life, about some huge changes I went through, like moving cities, ending a long-term relationship, coming out as queer, it goes on… At the time I never stopped to realise how special, but also painful some of these moments had been. Writing this record helped me process everything,” Holt tells Atwood Magazine.

“I don’t think I set out knowing I wanted to make a record initially, but as I started writing and telling these stories, it turns out there was a lot to cover,” she adds. “I started to get the guts of the record and sonic vision from songs like ‘Losing Out,’ ‘microdose,’ and ‘REAL.’ Then when I started thinking about playing these songs live and how I wanted it to be a rock show, I started writing songs like ‘SPIDER’ and ‘Plus One.’ The final pieces of the record were the quieter moments which helped give it light and shade – like ‘ribs’ and ‘Shark Attacks.’”

Holt candidly describes bruises as scuzzy, gritty, and grimy.

The album’s evocative one-word title came from a conversation with a friend.

“We were talking about going through life and leaving little bruises on yourself and other people,” she recalls. “It’s a part of growing up and navigating things, I guess. But this record is about all of the little scuffs I left on others and myself during this time.”

Bruises hurt, and they show – the physical ones linger on the skin, just as the emotional ones remain on the heart. As far as introductions are concerned, Holt feels this record not only stays true to its name as an expression of inner aching, but also offers an authentic depiction of her own humanity.

“Lyrically, it’s the most honest and upfront I’ve ever been,” she admits. “I stopped caring about the ramifications of people I know hearing the songs and reacting a certain way; I just kind of wrote for myself and expressed myself without any filtering.”

As a result, bruises is ruthlessly and relentlessly raw – a quality that makes its songs all the more alluring, all-consuming, and irresistible.

Highlights abound on the turbulent journey from the album’s urgent, emotionally charged opener “ADELINE” to its tender closer “Shark Attacks.” Holt spills her soul twelve times over as she aches openly and unapologetically, treating her audiences to a nonstop slew of heated alt-rock eruptions and impassioned upheavals.

“microdose,” initially released as total tommy’s debut single this past February, is an intoxicating three-minute head-spin: A hazy, hypnotic, multi-layered reverie that hits hard through emotional vocals, intense Strokes-y drums, and angsty guitars.

“Losing Out,” the artist’s heated second single, is a dreamy, dramatic alt-rock upheaval of intimate and epic proportions – a much-needed confrontation and cathartic release all at once that sees an empowered and energized Holt calling out someone who wronged her deeply. “False pretence / you think you got away with it,” she sings, wearing her heart on her sleeve as she breaks into a heavy, biting, and brutally honest chorus:

You can tell everyone that you’re losing out
Downplay like it was just one mistake
Fill up until you break down in rage
You keep saying you’re sorry
You swear you didn’t mean
the sh*t that you said
Wishing it would all go away
Want to see me on the weekend to say
Sorry, but it’s not enough

“‘Losing Out’ is a big one for me,” Holt says, citing it as one of her personal favorite total tommy songs. “I signed an NDA about this thing that happened to me, which I was kind of silenced in talking about. And in this song it’s a bit, iykyk…”

While she can’t go into details (for legal reasons) about the events that transpired, Holt elaborates on the song’s creation: “Someone I respected completely broke my trust and left me paralysed for a little while. I spent a lot of time going through the motions and feeling really thrashed about. I’d delayed writing about this time for a few months, but as soon as I started everything was super visceral and the lyrics formed in about fifteen minutes.”

Additional standouts include the soft, heartfelt confessional “ribs” (another “really special” Holt favorite), the exhilarating pop/rock anthem “SODA,” the grungy rager “SPIDER,” and the feverish and infectiously catchy sex-fueled singalong “Plus One.”

Holt lets her innermost bruises shine on “REAL,” a vulnerable, visceral, and utterly seductive eruption born out of that post-breakup dizziness “where you’re dipping in and out of reality,” as she describes it. “It’s the whirlwind of irrational thoughts you have about whether your decision was right, and the guilt of breaking someone’s heart. It’s the reminiscing, the hurt, the love that stays for a while after. But ultimately, knowing you did the right thing for yourself.”

Showed up empty-handed
to your house on a weekend
It’s a bad move, baby I’m bad news
Should’ve seen it coming, was a long shot
I’ll go out if I got
When it comes to doing something I regret
So I guess, I’m full of it
Please say that you want me back
‘Cause I want you back

I know I’m good for something,
but was giving you nothing
Put energy into strangers,
we’ve got all the pages
We rolled together, we said forever
But what the f* does that mean?

– “REAL,” total tommy

While “Losing Out” and “ribs” are her two favorite songs currently, Holt has more than a few lyrical highlights from all over the album.

“There’s a line in ‘Shark Attacks’ which is me to a tee: ‘Scared of getting in shark attacks, living as an insomniac. Truth is saying everything’s fine, knowing that it’s our fatal crime’. ‘Cause sometimes when I’m in trouble, I don’t ask for help. Like I would literally be in a shark attack, and I wouldn’t wave my hand for help. Maybe I would now though. And live, I love the line in ‘REAL’ that goes ‘We said forever, but what the f*** does that mean!?’”

Ultimately, bruises shines a hopeful, healing light on our own inner darkness.

Whatever changes or upheavals we might be going through at the moment, total tommy’s music is a passionate reminder that we’re not alone – and that we’ll make it through. Aching though it may be – and unapologetically so – this debut album is a cathartic, and truly captivating, release.

“I hope listeners feel empowered to take risks in life and push themselves to find a path that makes them happy,” Holt shares.

“Even if that might be hard in the short term. That’s what I’ve realised – processing all of this stuff and not regretting a thing, because I forged a path for myself that lets me live authentically and do things the way I want to do them.”

Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside total tommy’s bruises with Atwood Magazine as Jess Holt takes us track-by-track through the music and lyrics of her debut album!

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:: stream/purchase bruises here ::

:: connect with total tommy here ::

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Stream: ‘bruises’ – total tommy

:: Inside bruises ::

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ADELINE

The record was actually pretty much done when I wrote this song. I was in Melbourne with my friend Mark and my wife CP, finishing off some other tracks. It was close to the end of the day and felt inspired to write something fresh. “ADELINE” is an alias for my younger self, and this song is a letter to her.

REAL

I’m SO proud of this song and it’s my favourite on the record. It’s about a break up and the warped reality you live in for a while after leaving a long term relationship.

Losing Out

Lyrically this is the most straight up, brutal track on bruises. I loved experimenting with some more talky style vocals in the writing of this, and having a huge rocky chorus that kind of hits you unexpectedly.

SODA

I wrote this one with my wife, almost 3 years ago now. It was the first total tommy song written actually. ‘Til the party’s lost its SODA’ is such a fun lyric that I love.

Ghost

This was written in Berlin with my beautiful friend Stef. I had a lot of fun with auto tune on this one, something I usually don’t enjoy but for this song it just worked. It came together so quickly, Stef has this amazing way of capturing magic. If we’re ever writing and the song isn’t working, we just move on. We barely touched it from the first day demo we had! I’m very sentimental about Ghost.

ribs

I’m also so proud of this one. Written about a friend going through a really hard time, and me wanting to help but not feeling like I had the ability to. It closes off side A of the record so beautifully.

microdose

This was my first single for tommy, and it really kick-started everything. This was a big song for unlocking the tommy sound, and Mark (my producer) and I felt everything make sense when we wrote this one. Dan Carey mixed it, and took it to a whole other level.

SPIDER

The heaviest song on the record that is SO fun in our live show. Inspired by a spider on the wall in my studio, which then turned into an analogy for a clingy friend. The spider stayed the entire time I was writing this song, and then once it was finished – the spider left.

Plus One

A song about sex. I was listening to a lot of Bikini Kill and Hole at the time.

Amsterdam

I was in London, and flew in that morning for a session. I’d had a huge night in Amsterdam the night before – I ate a space cake and got way too high. I spent the whole day walking around by myself, mostly having a great time, but also having a crazy existential moment. I got into the studio and wrote about it all. It’s definitely the silliest track on the record.

Girlfriend

I wrote this song when I was very high on codeine after having my tonsils removed. It was written around the same time as SODA. I was inspired by Tegan and Sara’s ‘Closer’ – I love that song so much and wanted to capture that kind of lesbian energy.

Shark Attacks

I added this song to the record in the final week that I had to submit it for vinyl pressing, and now I couldn’t imagine this body of work without it. I wrote it about irrational fears and all of the little things that keep me up at night.

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:: stream/purchase bruises here ::

:: connect with total tommy here ::

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 © Andrea Veltom

bruises

an album by total tommy