ALBUM REVIEW: Hold My Hand, God Damn It – Gaffa Tape Sandy
GAFFA TAPE SANDY have been around for almost a decade and now they’re arguably at their best yet. Back stronger than ever, after being cut short by lockdowns and infighting within the band, they’re fully formed and coming to terms with their circumstances in their new offering Hold My Hand, God Damn It. It’s a garage rock record at its core but one that keeps pop and indie constitutions in mind to help pull on the heart strings and give the album some serious moveability.
After the pandemic, the Brighton-based trio could’ve been one of the pre-existing bands you might’ve written off and become a passing, nostalgic memory. Fortunately, they’ve stayed defiant in their stance and have rebuilt themselves. With that comes a change in creative roles; bassist/co-vocalist Catherine Lindley-Neilson is now contributing to the songwriting process, and her hardcore punk leanings can be heard on the faster and harsher toned tracks like Split and Energy.
The occasional heavier style, for GAFFA TAPE SANDY, suits Kim Jarvis’s yelping and howling vocals; the music finally keeps up with his full output, they needed the shift. Speaking of the shift, it also comes after Lindley-Neilson and Jarvis separated from each other, romantically ending their relationship. Unlike FLEETWOOD MAC and ABBA, they decided to be adults about things and realised their friendship and band is more important to them than losing each other completely. The silken moments of the record feel like a massive part toward the reconciliation between the two; Rosemary and Holding Hands are intimate looking glasses into a relationship that has crumbled and had to be reshaped.
When it isn’t soft and silky, Devour (Rosemary, Pt.II), Medicine, and Get Off are scratchy, rash-inducing garage rock, the type that a grandparent-gifted sweater will give you. Better yet is that they both complement each other, irritant and balm feed into one another just as either get going. Structurally, it seems to represent this hard battle of hating someone you love, made unique by the context of the band and their relationships with one another. You’d think it would present as scandalous or idyllic but it doesn’t, the whole thing vibrates with a wholesome energy that is well and truly GAFFA TAPE SANDY. Placing personal troubles next to dizzying teen stories — which feel like they could be anecdotes from Stand By Me [Body] — takes the edge at times, dipping between the highs and lows keeps you engaged in the experience and properly enjoying Hold My Hand, God Damn It.
Closer Queasy was written after the tragic murder of Sarah Everard, pointing out frog-skinned slimy men, positioning themselves as predators that see women as one thing and one thing only: prey. Lindley-Neilson and Jarvis deliver an impassioned vocal performance, nervously shaking and rattling with rage at times, and it perfectly rounds the album off and offers an aspect of what the band believe in.
Kim Jarvis’s Medicine lyric sums up GAFFA TAPE SANDY perfectly “Like a skeleton I am brittle” – vulnerable and fragile at times, together, they’re three skeletons, but there’s strength in numbers. Not much can shake this band anymore, their bones will just rattle off of each other.
Rating: 9/10
Hold My Hand, God Damn It is out now via Alcopop! Records.
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