Hollow Hand – Star Chamber
Hollow Hand - Star Chamber
Release Date: 19th October 2018
Somewhere, at the bottom of a wild
English garden in deepest Sussex there is a long forgotten ramshackle building that,
houses a dusty and neglected recording studio where some magic once occurred.
You see, back in the late 60s, the likes of the Beatles, the Kinks, Mungo Jerry
and countless others gathered here for a summer of debauchery and pure
creativity and this album is the result of that sun-drenched period in the
English countryside.
The above paragraph is, of
course, complete nonsense but now that you’re in that headspace you’ll be able
to fully and properly appreciate the joyousness of this offering from Brighton
trio Hollow Hand. ‘Ancestral Lands’ is the opening track of richly layered
acoustic strings and a flat, honest vocal that speaks of a time before auto-tune
and Instagram. On ‘One Good Turn’ the local school can be heard on the beginning
of the recording before the band bubble and burst in to life with some gorgeous
guitar jangles and the kind of twitchy energy that comes out of the freedom of
being allowed to create without a deadline or a known goal. There couldn’t be a
more 60s inspired title than ‘Blackberry Wine’ and the McCartney-esque
structure makes this an absolute delight but Marc Bolan’s influence can be felt
on the chorus and arrangements too.
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| Hollow Hand |
How rude of me, I haven’t introduced
the band. Pull up a chair and meet frontman Max Kinghorn-Mills with his firm
friends Pan Andrs and Atlas Shrugs. Not men born to be quantity surveyors or
dog walkers, these. ‘A World Outside’ is up next and it’s possibly the most
English track on this collection with that Mungo Jerry guitar line and the
Davies approach to story telling – you can picture the bowler hats and Morris
Minors if you close your eyes. On ‘Milestone’ the guys invited the token
American Neil Young in to the studio to get their groove on while ‘It’s You’ is
a gentle lovelorn ballad that you just want to spark up a fat one and drift
away to. ‘Two Of Us’ gets things back on track with a rolling drum beat and joyful
guitars carrying the deadpan vocals of Kinghorn-Mills at shoulder height
through the streets of, say, Salisbury.
There’s an innocence to ‘End of
Everything’ to being with but by the time the chorus melody kicks in we’re in to
something a little more progressive and you can’t help but get in the groove
these guys have created through endless jamming and the finest tea in the Home
Counties. There are hints of Beck (not Jeff) on ‘Made Up My Mind’ but the retro
vibe is maintained with the line “she’s a wolf trap, honey, with a tape
recorder”. No iPhones here. The homespun strum of ‘Avalon’ is far less Prog
than I expected but is instead a Kinks-esque slice of Sunday afternoon sunshine
through dusty windows. The album closes out with ‘Land of the Free’ which see
the band luxuriate over the range of the mixing desk and play without barriers
or boundaries. Hollow Hand are glorious and I can only explain this through a
short story; on a recent car journey back from a very boozy weekend with ma
boys we put this one on in the car and not only were hangovers soothed but
conversations were started about long forgotten artists, albums and a better
time for music. Get in on this before it runs out, times a wastin’.
More information: https://www.facebook.com/hollowhand/
Live Dates:
16th October – Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh
17th October – The Old Hairdresser’s, Glasgow
City
18th October – The Cluny 2, Newcastle Upon Tyne
19th October – YES (The Basement), Manchester
20th October – Headrow House, West Yorkshire
21st October – The Cookie, Leicester
22nd October – The Crauford Arms, Wolverton
23rd October – Rough Trade East, London
23rd October – Hoxton Hall, London
24th October – The Hope & Ruin, Brighton