Review: Hands and Knees - "Wholesome"

2010 was a great year for Boston bands, with killer records from Kingsley Flood, Viva Viva, Doomstar!, Faces On Film and St. Claire, just to name a few.  Well, 2011 is shaping up to be even better.  Barely 2 weeks into the year Hands and Knees has released Wholesome, their follow-up to 2009's excellent Et tu, Fluffy? and my personal soundtrack to the past few weeks (and it's not leaving the rotation anytime soon).

Wholesome plays like your favorite mixtape -- you know, the one that you listened to nonstop on that roadtrip until it wouldn't play anymore so you just sang the songs from memory?  What I'm getting at here is that Wholesome covers a lot of stylistic ground, and does it all well.  From jangly soul-tinged rock to catchy indie-pop to dusty country-folk, all with a broken-in lo-fi feel that matches the tunes perfectly.  The key is, it never seems forced or contrived -- it sounds like a fucking blast.  Like friends playing tunes they love. This is a record I know I'll be listening to for a long, long time.

Wholesome should open lots of doors for Hands and Knees -- so, while you still can, head over to the band's bandcamp page to grab the album for whatever you want to pay (including $0, but c'mon...).  You can also pick up the vinyl, which includes instant download for the super-reasonable price of $10 -- or spring for the limited edition vinyl version for just $5 more.  Catch the band's CD release show at Great Scott on January 27.

Stream or download the incredibly catchy "Sitting at the Piano Disappearing" below, and check out the Visible Voice Winter Mixtape to hear another track from Wholesome.

Hands and Knees - Sitting at the Piano Disappearing

Visible Voice Winter 2011 Mixtape

So, this is the first of what will be a quarterly thing on Visible Voice...the seasonal mixtape.  I plan to use these mixtapes as an opportunity to share some of my favorite new music.  Great tunes by local or not-so-local bands that you should know and, in many cases, tracks that have not been officially or widely released yet.  For this inaugural winter mix a cold, snowy Boston is my (our) backdrop and, fittingly for this time of year, many of the songs here evoke themes of reflection.  During the cold winter months I find that the music I listen to becomes increasingly spare, unadorned, raw.  These songs fit that mold; gritty and uncompromising, yet intensely beautiful.  I'm sharing this as two "sides" (think cassettes, vinyl), instead of individual mp3s, so that this might be listened to as a cohesive whole.  There will also be a limited number of physical copies available with individual tracks, please email if you'd like one.  

A huge thanks goes out to all of the bands that agreed to take part.  Please support them by buying their music and going to shows.  I hope you enjoy this as much as I have putting it together -- and please share!

Side A
1. You Are Not My Love - Wooden Dinosaur
2. I'll Be Fooled Again - Twain
3. Great Move North - Faces On Film
4. Wither on the Vine, pt. 2 - The Old Ceremony
5. Wolves of Winter - Lonesome Lake

Side B
1. Dancing On Your Tears - Hands and Knees
2. Long Time - Guards
3. Sweeties Babies - Push Pals
4. Say What You Will - Joe Fletcher & The Wrong Reasons
5. Crooked Road Blues - Mount Peru

Hands and Knees: James Brown Died On Christmas Day

Visible Voice wishes everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!  Topping our list of things we're thankful for is you, our readers, so here's a little something to get you in the holiday spirit...

If you're like me, it's not so much that you have anything against Christmas music.  The ubiquitous sleigh bells and cheesy holiday imagery warms the cockles in a nostalgic kind of way.  The problem is, we've been hearing the same handful of songs, year-after-year, for our entire lives.  As great as Otis Redding's version of "White Christmas" is, it gets old after a couple listens.  That's why I'm always on the lookout for new songs to add to the rotation during the holidays.

Boston's Hands and Knees is offering up a Christmas 7" that you'll want to make sure is on all of your Holiday playlists.  Where many indie bands come off as hopelessly out of their element when trying their hands at Christmas music, Hands and Knees shake things up and deliver two yuletide gems. 

The A-side, "James Brown Died On Christmas Day", would make the Godfather of Soul proud with its bouncy beat, handclaps and Brown-esque exclamations of "hit me!" and "oww!".  B-side "The Biggest Snowflake" is slower and brooding, spinning a surreal, twisted story about getting killed by a snowflake - I'm thinking it might make a little more sense after a few egg nogs.

The band was gracious enough to let me post James Brown Died On Christmas Day below for download.  Add this to your Holiday mix, then head to the band's bandcamp page to pick up the vinyl or digital version of The Biggest Snowflake.

Hands and Knees - James Brown Died On Christmas Day