HOLY PINTO TAKES ON THE WORLD WITH ‘US, AGAINST THE WORLD’ AND NEW LP ‘WEDDING SEASON’
Holy Pinto has returned with “us, against the world,” a warm, nostalgic slice of indie pop arriving today alongside the new album, Wedding Season. Led by British songwriter Aymen Saleh, the track looks back on the early days of a relationship and all the longing, excitement, and small memories that tend to become more meaningful with time.
“us, against the world” starts softly, driven by piano and Saleh’s conversational delivery before gradually expanding into something much bigger and more theatrical. What initially feels intimate begins to swell around him, giving the song a sense of movement that mirrors the rush of looking back on a relationship and realizing just how much life has happened since it began.
There’s a sweetness to the song, but Holy Pinto doesn’t drown it in sentimentality. Saleh has a knack for making personal observations feel casual and lived in, balancing sincerity with enough humor and self-awareness to keep things grounded. That approach fits naturally alongside the melodic storytelling of artists like Death Cab for Cutie and Ben Folds, while still sounding distinctly like Holy Pinto.
Adding another layer to the track is Bartees Strange, who plays guitar on “us, against the world.” Strange’s involvement extends throughout Wedding Season, having produced “us, married” while also contributing guitar to “death is in the air.” The collaboration grew out of the various DIY spaces and sessions where Saleh pieced together an album that has been years in the making.
That long road is important to Wedding Season. Rather than simply being a collection of songs released under the same title, the record was built as an ambitious concept album and a meticulous labor of love for Saleh. It explores relationships, marriage, change, and the strange realization that life keeps moving into entirely new chapters while you're still trying to understand the last one.
Even the title Wedding Season captures a very specific stage of adulthood. Eventually summers start filling up with weddings, friends settle down, relationships evolve, and the milestones that once seemed impossibly far away suddenly become your everyday life. Saleh finds plenty of material in that transition, approaching it with the warmth and observational humor that have become central to Holy Pinto’s songwriting.
It’s a quality that has earned Saleh praise from NPR, which previously described his sound as “sweetly jangling, good-natured Britpop.” That description still fits, but “us, against the world” shows how far Holy Pinto can stretch that foundation. What begins as a gentle piano song gradually grows into something considerably more dramatic without sacrificing the intimacy at its center.
The accompanying visualizer gives “us, against the world” a visual counterpart, but the song itself remains the main attraction. It’s nostalgic without getting stuck in the past and romantic without pretending relationships exist in some perfect little bubble.
With “us, against the world,” Saleh manages to capture something incredibly familiar: looking at the person beside you and remembering when the two of you were just beginning to figure everything out.
Holy Pinto’s “us, against the world” and new album, Wedding Season, are out now.
EXCLUSIVE GSM INTERVIEW WITH HOLY PINTO
There’s a sense of innocence in the song’s nostalgia—what do you think we’re really longing for when we miss the beginning of something?
The time before the 'weight' accumulated from compromise, negotiations, and setbacks. When things felt frivolous and free. It's the classic honeymoon-period type of thing with all projects/relationships in life.
The song seems to hold both the beauty and difficulty of experience at once. Was it important to you that the nostalgia didn’t become purely sentimental?
For sure — I think it's a truly sad song in a lot of ways because of the lens it chooses to see the world through. To me, it often feels like more of an indictment on the present than a yearning for the past- there's a hopelessness on it that is jarring to me upon listing back now.
“Us, against the world” suggests a sense of unity against everything else. How has your understanding of that idea changed as you’ve grown older?
Substantially, yes. I'm not sure if the idea in and of itself is different, but when you're a teenager, you feel so centered in yourself, and any issues/failures are like, "Fuck 'em, I'm right, you're wrong." I feel like there's a transition towards feeling less resolute in your internal centre of gravity as you grow older and experience more, and also - in a more positive sense - developing a more 'holistic' understanding of how things are and why they're that way.
A true "fuck them, I back myself!" veneer serves a purpose, but not unwaveringly across all situations or indefinitely. That said, I think the song and the thinking behind it express a wish that more of that attitude had remained — or that it can come back.
Wedding Season — TRACK LISTING
Dandelion i
Us, Forever
Us, Married
NOLY
Death Is In The Air
She Loves You
One Tattoo
Reunited
Pharmacy
Special
Complaint Dept.
Us, Against The World
Mr. Writer
Monster
We're All Doomed Forever
Billboard
Dandelion ii