This is the second album from the wonderfully named Patrick Kelleher & His Cold Dead Hands. There is a heavy 80s synthpop influence hanging over much of this album, with copious use of keyboards and programmed drums.
The title track shows the influence of Joy Division / New Order on its drums and vocals, while there is a heavy Joy Division influence on drums and bassline on Too Many Harsh Words, like the offspring of Dead Souls and Atrocity Exhibition.
Seen Me Blue and Gouge are perfect replicas of 80s chilly synth pop while Broken Up Now drifts along pleasantly on a New Order style bassline. Later, Contact Sports betrays a shoegazing influence, while the decidedly odd Strawberry Dog is built almost entirely on animal noises including, I shit you not, a frog chorus.
After yet more portentuous keyboards on I Don’t Remember, Kelleher appears to have remembered the existence of guitars, introducing it in the out-tro, and then in the final track, the atypical shimmering acoustic strum of Still In School.
Kelleher and his keyboard playing Cold Head Hands are certainly ploughing an individual furrow, at least for those not around to catch this stuff 25 years ago or so.
By Killian Laher.
Track listing:
1. Miracle Candle
2. Golden Syrup
3. Seen Me Blue
4. Too Many Harsh Words
5. Broken Up Now
6. Gouge
7. Contact Sports
8. Strawberry Dog
9. I Don’t Remember
10. Still In School
