Hiding Places

Shortly after forming, the members of the New York-via-North Carolina indie rock band Hiding Places noticed a secret power. During their live sets, no matter the loudness, scuzziness, or mayhem of the venues they played, their tender, atmospheric sound became the focus of the room, quieting their surroundings as audiences became hypnotized by their steady, rhythmic interplay and bittersweet vocal melodies. From these experiences, the band developed a credo of close listening. If one member plays too fast, they won’t try to nudge down the tempo; if someone’s volume rises above the rest, they adapt their levels accordingly. The goal, always, is togetherness—to maintain a unified whole, always in sync. This philosophy is part of what makes the quartet’s cozily intricate and hard-hitting Keeled Scales debut, The Secret to Good Living, feel like a bold introduction as much as a well-worn mixtape, passed down from a trusted friend. 

It makes sense that the band formed while three of its members were DJs at their college radio station at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They embrace music as a means of communication, identity-forming, and deeper understanding of human nature. Songwriters/guitarists Audrey Keelin and Nicholas Byrne alternate between fronting the band, sharing lead vocals and lending the 10-song record the tone of an intimate conversation with room for silence and deeper concentration. Rounded out by a rhythm section of drummer Henry Cutting and bassist/producer Michael Matsakis, they’ve developed a forward-thinking sound with a sense of nostalgia built into it: a blend that draws from the collage-like indie rock of Yo La Tengo, the elegant slowcore of The New Year, the riffy story-songs of Drive-By Truckers, and the analog hum of The Microphones. 

The Secret to Good Living, which bridges their fuzzy home-recorded demos with their first experience in a professional recording studio, helps translate their humble beginnings to the big stages for which they seem destined. It’s the product of hermetic late-night sessions, collaborative writing retreats in Athens, Georgia, and an evolving perspective on their singular dynamic. After years of working remotely, this record marks the collective result of the quartet living together in a city for the first time—an experience that amplified the band’s creative bond and connected them with fellow North Carolina transplants in the city.

“We’ve built a Southern home in New York and simultaneously get to experience the cultures of the world that collide here,” Byrne says of their tight-knit community and enduring connections to their hometowns, where they frequently return. “Within 24 hours, I could be at Myrtle Broadway and then in rural Georgia sighting in a hunting rifle. Living between Southern landscapes and New York, and carrying those lessons and experiences with us, has been the story of this band.” On The Secret to Good Living, Hiding Places follow this thread, navigating their mid-to-late 20s and using songwriting as a portal for self-discovery and exploration. Tellingly, the concept raised in the title arrives not in a prescriptive philosophy but as an ongoing inquiry: “Oh, what’s the secret to good living,” Byrne and Keelin ask in unison. “How was I supposed to know?”

Hiding Places’ songs are filled with open-ended questions, abstract imagery, and self-affirming mantras that seem designed to be shouted back from the crowd. In “Holy Roller,” a grinding, stop-starting anthem about wandering and returning, Keelin builds spiritual crescendos from the smallest details: “a little light, a little smile.” In the next song, the restrained epic “One Hand,” a brief verse is stretched across nearly six minutes through the song’s multi-part structure, building patient monuments to life’s fleeting moments. It’s a trick that’s matched by Matsakis’ meticulous production, which involved slowing down the bass and drums on tape to create a warmer, weightier effect.

For Hiding Places, each element of their sound is poised for maximum emotional impact, a strength they’ve developed from years on the road. The band formed during a fruitful period for independent music in North Carolina, and Colin Miller (MJ Lenderman, Indigo De Souza) produced the band’s previous release, 2024’s Lesson EP. Since then, they’ve shared stages with influences and peers throughout North America including Wednesday, Little Mazarn, and Friendship’s Dan Wriggins. Among these breakthrough artists blending old-school songwriting with artful, internet-age idiosyncrasy, Hiding Places have already carved their own identity: With their unassumingly cosmic observations and see-sawing delivery, their music seems to stop time.

For their full-length debut, Hiding Places took the opportunity to explore the traditional Side A/Side B structure of a vinyl record, pacing their songs to resolve each other and find new modes of storytelling. The lyrical inspiration ranges from introspective coming-of-age tales (“I feel like validating anger is an important part of moving past trauma,” Keelin explains of her songwriting approach) to half-remembered memories from their community. In the slow-burning classic rock of “Heat Lightning,” Byrne transcribes fragments of a conversation with a local character reflecting on his young adulthood spent traveling the country by motorcycle: “All there was to do was drink and fight,” he sings, sounding equally broken by the memories and proud to have survived to tell the tale. For Hiding Places, this is the type of insight that rises above the maelstrom of daily life: somewhere between happy and sad, honest and profound, destined to endure within the deep black grooves of your next favorite record.

Photos by Calli Westra