| CD REVIEW Hands |
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Band: Hands This Post-Hardcore outfit called Hands comes to us from Fargo, North Dakota (so don’t confuse ‘em with The Hands from Seattle, which is “merely” a Rock act with a self-titled 2008 album to their name) where the band was formed in 2007 by singer/ guitarist Shane Oschsner, bassist Chris Schwartz, and drummer Josh Silbernagel, plus a second guitarist (of which I’ve found no lingering traces, his place taken in – at first temporarily, but it looks like a permanent situation by now – by Jerik Hendrickson). At first the band’s music was geared towards the more heavy variant of Progressive Post-Hardcore (with mainly screamed vocals), and as such the band recorded a private EP entitled The Everlasting (at least, I suspect it’s a private release, because you can’t get it by the normal retail means). While still a trio, the band recorded the musically somewhat different and lyrically conceptual The Sounds Of Earth in a week’s time during September 2008 at Cathouse Studios with Mike Dresch (Nodes Of Ranvier, The Spill Canvas). In their concept, the band displays some of the contrasting themes that run throughout humanity, pairing the themes of “Judgement” and “Mercy”, “Separation” and “Communion”, “Despair” and “Hope”, and eventually “Ignorance” (an atmospheric instrumental, quite fittingly) and “Revelation”. On the band’s MySpace page (which remains the sole source of info on the band to date), the guys have given a perfectly fitting description (which I couldn’t better anyway, so why bother?) of their music, so I thought I’d just give you that as a citation: “Hands unfurl hugely anthemic Prog-Rock ballads bearing the influence of Isis, while at the same time laying out solidly Progressive Hardcore tracks inspired by bands such as Life in Your Way and Misery Signals…”! The label recommends the album to fans of Underoath, As Cities Burn, Isis (evidently), and Amenra! And, you know something? When listening to the album the first time, I was mainly enthralled/ hypnotized by the music (and vocal diversity), and hadn’t even noticed that the band sees the themes from their Christian point of view…until the last 3 minutes of the album, when they start a sort of chant with the clean-vocal lyrics, “Hear O Earth, The Lord our God is One”! Instantly, my interest was aroused (you know, because the guys brought their stuff so magnificently beautiful it was all so attractive), and I started checking the lyrics for the rest of the album (which excludes the instrumental album opener “Beginning”, the aforementioned “Ignorance”, and the album’s intrumental title track)! And yés indeed, they all had the personal Christian viewpoints imprinted in ‘em! Now, it’s a fact of life that sóme music fans will put down any band who’ll make too much a point of their religious beliefs (and even I have been known to express my negative feelings against such bands myself), but in the case of Hands, the Christian thing is coming more from the universal viewpoint of necessary respect and love for The Other, and therefore somewhat removed from any embarassing preaching practices! You can listen to two songs off the band’s EP, ànd two songs off this concept album, at myspace.com/wearehands [as well as a promo video for the album, and a live version of “Returning” (studio version in media player), as recorded at last year’s Sonshine festival]. Having seen the album released in the US during February, the band has already toured in support of the album (they’ve just finished their Arise & Conquer Tour with War Of Ages, Destroy The Runner, and Hope For The Dying, and did an appearance at the Facedown Fest in Pomona, CA), and in fact April 17 sees the band back in the studio (for 2 weeks this time) with Dresch to record their new studio full-length, due out during June on Facedown Records…can’t wait to see that arrive, even if in their promo video for The Sounds Of Earth, the band mentions that the music for that album was different from anything they’d done before (relating to the atmospherics, I gather)! Meanwhile, count TSOE as belonging to the top of my year-lists! 98/100 Tony. |