In today’s climate, bands and artists blowing up overnight and storming the charts are dead. It is a brutal process, from getting local gigs to performing on the main stages of festivals. As such, there is a swelling of talent on the underground, poised to break through.
So, this week, we are picking five of our favourite artists on the cusp of said breakthrough.
Today, we pick our top 5 tracks by The Velvet Hands:
*banner image courtesy of Alan Wells.
Image courtesy of Harvey Williams-Fairley & Sonic PR
The Party’s Over
Comfortably in the last decade's top 5 rock ‘n’ roll songs. A stonewall classic built sonically on debauchery and lyrically on unrequited love and heroic failure.
Holiday In My Head
The fog of life without a future swell to unprecedented levels in the verses as they play The Ramones sound in ferocious Stooges style. The intensity is several levels above anything their debut offered, exemplified by the explosive Nick Valensi (The Strokes) meets Russell Lissack (Bloc Party) solo. It encapsulates the pressure and stress of bills mounting, work not paying, and life becoming too much with such vehement brilliance.
Telephone Love
‘Telephone Love’ takes the band to darker pastures of overindulgent all-nighters of booze and drugs. The party is over, but the protagonists remain, caning it. A snapshot of a generation sold down the river in every industry. Now they’re left praying the next line will make them feel alive enough to carry on:
“Bloodshot eyes and bleeding gums,
Welcome to the house of fun
And now you’re talking insane,
Telephone love runs through your veins
And I don’t know just how you found me, I don’t know Just how you found me
And now, and now it’s dawn
Riding from the dusk before
We could waste the night
You know you help me feel alive”
I Don’t Mind
‘I Don’t Mind’ has a chorus that forges a togetherness with the band and the listener through its shambolic arm-in-arm drunkenness. Images of spilt snakebite and sweat-ridden walls of indie discos flood the senses.
Sucker Punch
Artwork curtesy of Sonic PR.
The violence and desolation on the title track ‘Sucker Punch’ but a more thoughtful musicality exists. The title track initiates with jagged 00s guitars reminiscent of Bloc Party, Dogs, and early Razolright whilst the vocals roar like Johnny Rotten. Despite the uncompromising snarling of the verses, they lead into a melodic Vaccines-esque chorus for fans to buy into joyously. Not finished there, they serve up a breakdown akin to an out-of-body experience. The message of getting up off the canvas and keep fighting becomes less naive and one of “now or never” and “don’t give up”. They emerge on the other side with confidence and solidarity.
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