Shaking Hand s/t

Melodic

Manchester's Shaking Hand released a handful of singles in 2025 to pave the way to the self-titled debut. With "In For A.... Pound!", "Mantras" and "Cable Ties" a serious foundation - a foundation which flourishes on the full-length release - was set. "Over the Coals" - a standalone 7-minute single released in June - is nowhere in sight. Call it a fresh slate. Shaking Hand's Bandcamp reads: 'Just a Shaking Hand without a concrete plan.'

Per the band's Press Release, and with relation to the album's artwork:

'The album artwork is taken from unused plans for the 1970s redevelopment of Los Angeles by architect Ray Kappe, entitled ‘People Movers’. Hypothetical buildings for real people, it feels a complement to the band’s own constructions.'

The album opens with "Sundance", a gorgeously melancholic piece. Once bitten, twice shy. We're introduced to a band with earworms all over: basslines which web-and-weave, and pull to-and-fro; guitars which tangle themselves up and set themselves free in the same breath; vocals which emanate a sense of peaceful disillusionment; drums that take on a humble existence all the while imprinting their point on your brain. The track's closing moments - the final two-or-so-minutes - meanders on this gorgeous bow of uncertainty; heart-squinting theatrics - gleeful gloom. The beauty in life is not all that it's cracked up to be. The pain outweighs the pleasure - for the momentary relief of pleasures worth - by absurd amounts, but that doesn't make it any less splendid. The colours are more vivid after the wrestle with life loosens. And boy, its grip is TIGHT.

"Mantras" is a story told in two halves: the bittersweet build-up, and the prickly, rhythm driven release; the corner which you catch your toe on. The subdued calm met by the waking call. The daydream rudely awakened by the reality. 

"In For A... Pound!" caught my ear straight away when I heard it towards the end of 2025. It had this immediate, familiar feel - like you've heard it before, but not in this life. Remnants of a world of Other air about it as if you've been here before; deja vu-like fragmented memories fall like teeth from a slapped mouth. 

'Out for a penny; in for a pound'

Math-y Melancholy. Bittersweet hearts; heavy lungs; lead legs. The bassist is always up to no good - he's a mischievous sod; a grizzly so-and-so. Setting the foundation for the others to build on - in accordance with the drums - gnarly lines are weaved like buttery, fat-infested blankets. There'll be no sleeping done here. The discomfort renders it a sleepless cause. 

Drawing pretty patterns on the wall. Seeing pretty patterns behind your eyelids. Mental projections of sweeter times. As if Declan Mckenna fronted Fontaines D.C., Shaking Hand tap into a rugged melancholy - in equal parts rugged and melancholic. 

'It's alright to beat 'round the bush sometimes.'

A set of bittersweet clouds hover around the record. The sun peeks through, but mostly sits somewhere up there far, far away. The silver lining never seems to make itself known. 

'I lost the blues and found them far away.' Somewhere far off-shore, yet they remain within a whiskers grip. Never as far as where you are, "Up the Ante(lope)" seems to hammer home the harsh realities of reality. 'Dress the cannonball all in black'. Dress it however you want. Life is life; reality is reality. The purpose is to wake up to the fact. Go against it at your will; the illusion will have you turnt. 

The third-and-final single released in the run-up to the album is also album closer "Cable Ties"; it clocks in at just under 9-minutes in total. As the space and time would suggest, Shaking Hand delve deep into song structure and worm around many a musical motif and moment. 

'Sticks and stones and staggered lines.'

The album beautifully slow-crawls towards its finish line. 

'It won't stop everyone'. 

Shaking Hand don't reinvent the wheel on their first outing, although they do find their particular downtrodden, lachrymose spoke. It's an ambitious project; with four of the seven songs being six-plus-minutes in length, Shaking Hand aren't here to entertain those short of sight.