Review: Dead Hand of Man - Dead Hand of Man
[Self-released, 2014]
Rating: 6.5/10
By Colin Roose, Reviews Editor
Key Tracks: "Gotta Know The Rules," "Streptococcus Boogie"
The amount of infrastructure around rock 'n' roll is frightening. The 60 years of its existence has seen classically trained musicians, synthesizers and Avril Lavigne dilute and sweeten the once-potent strength of its liquor. Where is the uninhibited release? The lack of taste? The tradition? The unashamed displays of testosterone? All lost to time and the moneymen, my friend.
The punky, spunky and slightly country Dead Hand of Man clearly misses the departure of this side of the devil's music. Its five-track EP is barely 10 minutes and consists of unvarnished slabs of chord progressions, recorded live and free of any traces of polish. An overdubbed guitar is discernible, but that's it. No odysseys into the psyche, just three guys with nothing on their mind other than tearing through the crunchy, rude noise we call rock.
The record clearly makes its point at a breakneck rate. As this reviewer is writing these words, the album has played three times through already. And therein lies its most impressive quality: the refusal of its songs to compromise to concepts like pretension or self-indulgence.
Oh yes, the songs themselves: there is one instrumental, two originals and covers of Social Distortion and The Ramones. All of them conservatively tread the same melodic ground, so much so that the endings and beginning of songs are practically indistinguishable.
The effect of this is that after the listener recovers from being pounded into the ground by the guitar, he or she will suddenly notice how much all the other music in the world is choked by needless mannerisms and clutter.
Causing a fundamental thought shift with five sets of three-chord songs? That's a feat that would make Confucius green.
But even taking into account the defiant carelessness of the music, the production is a sore point. The guitar is pumped with gnarly distortion, while the rest of the band cowers in fear of its canine fangs that slice through the sound. In the drums, only the snare registers as a metronomic thud way back there somewhere. The bass tiptoes around everywhere but still gets buried, only managing to slip through cracks in the towering wall of distortion.
Perhaps a bigger disappointment is that the instruments seem to have the most presence in the band. Punk-flavored music demands a powerful personality to wrangle with the toughness of the music in both sound and lyrics, but that ingredient is missing here.
The lyrics on the original songs "Two-Timin' Baby" and "Rhythm & Soul" can hardly be distinguished, and when they are audible, they are disappointingly trite. Unfortunately, Dead Hand of Man's impressive filter of all unnecessary musical elements also claimed the charisma of these songs.
For this reason, the instrumental and the covers fare much better. "Streptococcus Boogie" speeds along like a blues band on PCP, managing to cram 80 bars into its minute-and-24-second duration. "Gotta Know The Rules" still beats out the other four songs for best, however, because of its condensation of an already bare song and its wonderful chord progression.
Back-to-roots in rock may not be a new movement, but after hearing Dead Hand of Man it's clear that the feeling the punks experienced back in 1976 is still as virile as ever. So to Bram Riddlebarger, Thom Hirbe and Charlie Touvell: thank you. You have managed to convince a semi-classically trained musician and a synthesizer lover that punk is worth exploring. Now I wanna be your dog.
