Review by Joe Harvey
I had never heard of Hand To Hand before, so I was anxious to listen to their music, considering the fact that they are on Lifeforce and Lifeforce is pretty good for exposing the music of lesser-known, talented bands. I was happy to hear that with the opening track, "In This City", which is a pleasant sounding combination of screaming and clean vocals. The chemistry of the two voices blends well together and both get nearly equal track time on the record, so the two working well together is definitely a relief. The first song is good and gave me the idea that I was in for a good album by a band I hadn't previously heard, so I was looking forward to hearing the rest.
The second track, "State of Emergency", isn't really anything special. It isn't bad, but it is without a doubt the type of song that will not gain any kind of long-term remembrance. Song three, "Last Saturday Was Way Better", has a good chorus, the kind that can easily get stuck in your head. After hearing track 3, I wasn't really getting the surprise of great music I was expecting, so disappointment was beginning to set in. The fourth song, "I Drew A Portrait In Philly", is a heavier song, but along with a few of the previous songs, it holds nothing really special. The trend of anti-quality at this point made it pretty clear that this entire record was more than likely going to be bland and unexciting. Which it is.
"Mr. War Within" is the fifth song, and if it being another boring song isn't bad enough, it is clear to see that the title is laughably bad. "The Lion's Den" is the sixth track, and as one may have guessed, it sounds all-too-similar to the rest of the CD.
"Passing Through" is the stretch of the album, a short instrumental song. It has a very soothing sound, and I don't know if this is a good thing, but is probably the best song on the CD. The fact that the song uses lots of piano shows the listener that the band chose not to take that route on the rest of the album. If they had, it may have added a needed element to add to the lacking sound of all the other songs.
Hand To Hand goes right back into their signature sound with "Love Muscle". With this continuous outpouring out of lackluster songs, one at this point is only wanting the CD to end. "Los Muertos Caminan" is another cookie-cutter track. The final song on the album, "Lets End This Album With A Party", is actually pretty decent. It has a lot of good instrumental work and heavy bass sounds, which leads one to wonder why they didn't use this idea on the rest of the CD. It really is too bad. The track is 20 minutes long and ends with a one-minute improvised rap song which is not only non-humorous, but is just down-right fucking stupid.
I never enjoy reviewing albums poorly, but this one clearly is lacking in many fields and there isn't really much good I can say about it. The well-blended vocals show that this band could potentially put that sound to good use, but the linear guitar riffs and similar-sounding songs cloud that concept completely.