(SXSW 2014 flavoured!) Bands to Watch #292: Broken Hands
If you hail from Canterbury, Kent like this next band, you probably get tonnes of Chaucer jokes flung in your direction. (Or at least that’s what I assume. I’ll ask to be sure though…) Probably not a good idea in this case though. So, Broken Hands: the name conjures up a pretty aggro image in your head (like “ROWR! I’ve broken hands!”), or possibly, depending on the way you look at it, a really good or really bad drunken night out. Turns out their music sounds more the former. The Kent quartet – comprised of Dale (vocals) and Callum Norton (drums), and Jamie Darby (guitar) and Thomas Ford (bass) – make bluesy, growly rock, which makes a whole lot of sense if you consider that Southampton’s Band of Skulls endorse them wholeheartedly, having taken them on tour across the UK and Europe.
Ahead of two shows next week on the 11th (sold out) and the 12th of February at London Bridge Miller, they’ve released new track ‘My Orbit Changes Everyday’, which is a study into something very interesting. With a wigged out intro not dissimilar to Steppenwolf’s ‘Magic Carpet Ride’, you already know you’re in for something a little different. True to its name, ‘My Orbit…’ has a space age sound to be sure, but it’s the punishing guitars and Dale Norton’s swaggery vocal that will stick with you. What else will stick with you is how the song deceives you as you think it is about to end around the 3-minute mark, but in actuality, this is just before its outro lays into you like a Led Zeppelin jam. Let the headbanging commence!
The band will be heading to Austin for their first SXSW next month, and if your musical tastes run to the bluesy, they’re unmissable.
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3rd March 2014
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