Sinking my way below the sea
The air escapes me I no longer breathe
And now I’m downing in the flood
The holy water fills my lungs
There are hours in a life when faith rises like a warm lantern in the dark, its glow steadying the hand and softening the terrors that crowd the mind. And yet, in that same radiance, a shadow lengthens…for the very doctrines meant to cradle the spirit can also press upon it, close as a damp shroud. The hymns that promise refuge may become commands, the gentle murmur of comfort turning into a narrow corridor where one’s truer self is asked to bow, fold, and disappear. In this tension between solace and suffocation, religion reveals its most human (and most haunting) face.
Alex Okami has a knack for turning private upheaval into something that feels like a transmission straight from the ribcage. Holy Water arrives in a surge: thick, pressure-packed, and humming with the kind of clarity that comes when you stop pretending the walls are closing in. He’s been brewing this one for years; you can hear the long-haul weight in every chord he drags into the light, channeling NIN, Twin Tribes, AFI, and Clan of Xymox in his stylings.
The track moves with a steady churn: guitars circling like they’ve been pacing the same locked room forever, drums planting their feet with a stubborn thud. His voice drops into the mix like an anchor – low, deliberate, and steady enough to make the floorboards feel untrustworthy. There’s a nervous brightness to the riff, the kind that comes from staring too long at something forbidden. All that talk of sinking and rising becomes less poetic metaphor and more like a record of the body under spiritual stress. The flood he’s recounting in the lyrics could just as easily be memory, guilt, or the familiar tug of something that once promised comfort but now bites back.
The lyrics spell out a person fighting a tide that keeps changing its name. One moment it feels like faith, the next it feels like punishment. What’s supposed to lift him up ends up pressing him down, inch by inch, until breath and will start trading places. It’s the oldest struggle on earth, but Okami pins it with a blunt, almost physical tension that avoids pretense. No pretty poses. Just the slow sink.
He then breaks it wide open: “You could say Holy Water has been a song that’s been spinning in my head, in one way or another, most of my life,” he confesses. “It’s really an expression born of being raised in a Mexican family of devout Catholics. Ultimately looking in the mirror and asking myself, How devout am I?”
That question hangs over the whole track. Not as an answer, not as absolution, just a stark recognition that religion can cradle you, choke you, and dare you. Here, Okami doesn’t tidy up these big feelings; he simply opens the door and lets the flood rush in.
Watch the video for “Holy Water” below:
Listen to Holy Water below and order the single here.
Alex Okami will be supporting Corbeau Hangs on a 3-date Texas run to promote the new single.
- November 21 Austin, TX | Chess Club
- November 22 San Antonio, TX | Paper Tiger
- November 23 Houston, TX | Barbarellas
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