Milwaukee Artist of the Week – 7/18/14 – Heavy Hand
Are you a Milwaukee musician/band? You can submit your music to be the Milwaukee Artist of the Week by emailing links to info@BreakingAndEntering.net. We’ll check out every submission we get!
This week’s Milwaukee Artist of the Week is Heavy Hand, a trio with an infectious, upbeat sound. Their latest album “Northwoods Knives” recently came out, and it’s essentially a party in cassette form (Unless you’re willing to pay $1,000 for the digital version, as priced on their Bandcamp page). The band’s sound blurs the line of punk and indie, making the album a solid, straight up rock n roll record all the way around. With songs driven around simple guitar riffs, the trio manages to make any song catchy, on melody alone. Although, the band does draw you in on this record, with song titles like “David Bowie Wants To Steal Your Baby” and “Hot With Dads Tiger Beat Nation”. There are more imaginative titles than those, but that should be a solid introduction to make you want to listen to this album.
The first couple tracks on “Northwoods Knives” are a mild tempo for punk, but not lacking in aggression by any means, which makes for a good way to feed you into the rest of the album. By the time you hit the midpoint of the album, “Secret Of These Wedges”, things are all the way shaken up, with a onslaught of over the top guitars. the back end of the album doesn’t falter, either. At times, to compare, Heavy Hand can sound like a slightly stripped down At The Drive-In, and I only mean stripped down in the sense that they have two less members than At The Drive-In. Nevertheless, the band packs a punch as a trio, and really doesn’t need any help on this record.
Plain and simple, “Northwoods Knives” is a fast, fun album. The longest song on the album clocks in at two minutes and 58 seconds, keeping even the snobbiest of punks pleased. If anything, this album only picks up the intensity as it goes on, which is definitely something that other bands lack on their releases. This feels as if you were seeing the band live, which I’m sure is an experience in itself. In fact, you can see them tonight at the Cactus Club. In the meantime, stream “Northwoods Knives” below:
