[ANTI-DEPRESSANT] After seeing the Shaky Hands' warm, frenetic live show, its old self-released EP was sorta hard to hear. It hardly showcased the band's energy or the beaming, nod-and-sing sweetness of Nick Delffs' vocals. But that's in the past. The Shaky Hands self-titled full-length remedies the situation: It brings the world to a standstill the same way the band's live show does.
The album starts, oddly, with "Whales Sing," a track that introduces the Shaky Hands with the same bass riff commonly associated with the Blues Brothers. But instead of calling out the band members' curious nicknames one by one, "Whales Sing" rides a two-chord wave of jangles and shakers like an organic, homespun version of New Order's "Age of Consent." This is when I start smiling. "I know all whales can sing," frontman Nick Delffs hollers as the song shifts into second gear, but all I seem to hear is: "Hey, we're the Shaky Hands. You're cool with us changing your life, right?"
Nick Delffs sings about death and nature like a wide-eyed child, stretching each syllable as far as it will go. "The light will come and save us all/ No more fear once again," he proclaims over the foot-stomping back-porch folk of "I'm Alive." The music stops before kicking into its Thermals-lite conclusion, as Delffs sings with an increasingly incoherent Marc Bolan waver, "And when you cast me out I'm floating like a feather." It may not mean much on paper, but against the twists and turns of the Hands' rock, it's as much a revelation as Doug Martsch singing "I wanna see movies of my dreams" on Built to Spill's "Car."
There's a sense of wonder and naiveté to the Shaky Hands' music that a lot of bands try, and fail, to capture. The trick is in making it look effortless, something the Hands don't have to worry about—for them, it is. You hear it in the whistling introduction to "Sunburns" and among the claps and stomps of the album's spectacular, moving finish, "Summer's Life," where Delffs convincingly sings, "We lived like children do/ We were kind then, and so brand new/ And our love did end/ And I wonder what happened."
Bands this good don't stay a secret for too long. I just hope fame doesn't fuck these guys up, because right now, the Shaky Hands are perfect.
The Shaky Hands play Saturday, April 7, with Plants and Mustaphamond at Holocene. 9 pm. $5. 21+. Also at Music Millennium Northwest. 3 pm. Free. All ages. Also see music feature, page 31.
Brad
