I’ve been eagerly dancing around this stunning li’l number from Cambridge’s Hands and Knees, enjoying it as heartily as I would a great huge fucking sandwich. You know, where everything is fresh and balanced, proportional and you went just a bit too wacky with the mayo? This tape is such a catchy and uplifting sandwiching of delta blues and ripped garage with some real earnest pop all snarfed down with a liberal dollop of psych spread over the whole works.
Immediately engaging is the opener, “Pinwheel” which has a bit of a rockabilly skein over a sweet lilting melody, bolstered by ethereal harmony and meandering slide shots. “Cemetery” just slams the fuzz into a catchy as hell upbeat kind of hands-in-the-air gospel tune, with a grinding breakdown. Awesome! Two songs in and I wanna rewind the tape just to start again, but more treasures await. “Deadbones” and “Gracie” start invoking some Bo Diddley rawness and propulsion with the bass chugging along mightily underneath.. all the musicians in this band are fucking aces, knowing just when to contract, when to expand, there’s a patience at work that allow the songs to be their best.
“Weiwei”, perhaps namesakes after the famed Chinese artist/activist Ai Weiwei , sees some more fast punk-infused chops meet some doo-wop, and things then chill out on the 50s sounding tremolo raunch of “Dreamt”. “Cool” and “Whorehouse” crank up the psych-stomp again, with some well placed handclaps and weird fiddly keys at work before segueing into the more country fried “Sagapow!” which feel like it could have fallen off of a recent Demon’s Claws album. Penultimate closer “War” has a faux-pedal steel country vibe also, albeit with some early Flaming Lips around the sides, then coda “Monsters” takes us home in a lovely ballad with piano, acoustic guitar and a single vocal.
It’s a really succinct and balanced album, drawing on a lot of idioms, but successfully avoiding BEING any of them. Perfectly in line with the solid quality of psych-garage-punk releases we’ve come to enjoy from the Cambridge/Allston based pRIMORDIAL sOUNDS label ( Fedavees , CreaturoS ), this fantastic cassette only release is a must-have by a band who also rules live.
