Labels: Bad Egg – Eat A Book – Hit Time Records – Speedowax
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Human Hands are unashamedly, unabashedly, an emo band. Look at the centre labels of this release, with loads of type written a’s and b’s (lower case for the most part, natch). The packaging is photocopied and the insert random with the lyrics pasted over brief biographies of jazz musicians and photos of boys. If you tippexed out the bit where it says “Human Hands” and showed me the record and said “Bet you’ve never seen this before, it’s an unreleased Embassy 7″ that never made it past tess presses” I would believe you.
“During & After” is on side A and is a drawn out effort, very sombre and ponderous. It sounds like how emo is supposed to be, heavy hearted and serious. The vocals are mostly spoken but surge into moments of louder expression towards the end. It draws upon the ghosts of Native Nod and Bob Tilton to great effect. It hits a groove and the guitar sound is perfect for the music, chiming away over the insistent rhythm of bass and drums. Flip for “Timothy” which is astonishing, a perfect throwback to an era of sincere hearts, worn on the sleeve, with a slow burning, slow churning effort that never is tempted to go flying off the rails, rather maintaining a troubled path and coming to a slightly too abrupt finale. Not many bands can get the Indian Summer thing right, but Human Hands totally know what they are doing without sounding trite, without rehashing Angry Son, just invoking a particular spirit and feel. If this one doesn’t have you rocking back and forth on your heels then you’re not emo now and you never were in the first place.
Human Hands keep the candle burning here. A special 7″. I feel that 2011 is shaping up as the best year for the genre in a very long time.
P.S. I love that Speedowax helped release this! Must be a decade since we last reviewed something on that label.