This band had been recommended to me so many times and March has been such a quiet month thus far, that I decided to check this album out.
I was slightly put off, truth be told, by their press-bio which describes The Shaky Hands as "Portland's finest". Surely M. Ward would have something to say about that? In any case there is absolutely no similarity between 'Lunglight' and anything produced by 'Portland's finest troubadour' as this is a feel-good indie pop album.
I'll get the comparisons out of the way first. The Shaky Hands sound a little like Conor Oberst fronting the Violent Femmes. Singer Nick Delff has all of Oberst's nervy vocal mannerisms and the music here has the same jangly, riff heavy sound as The Femmes, or for that matter Tapes 'n' Tapes.
The songs? Well they're ok. Short, sharp and mostly catchy. 'Loosen Up is a little bluesy, 'We Are Young' sounds pretty joyous to me, even though it probably wasn't intended for a 34 year old bloke to listen to on the train. The album is unbelievably front-loaded though and the middle section is extremely hard to get through since all..the..songs..sound...the.....same....but they redeem themselves at the end with 'Wake The Breathing Light' which at five minutes long is an epic for this record and starts softly before building into an extended coda.
Since lyrically they have little to say and musically there are no real diversions from the catchy, quirky, guitar heavy sound, this works as fairly pleasant background music, but expect nothing more Earth-shattering than that.
5.8
['Lunglight' is out now on Memphis Industries]
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