By Phil Cooper
Portland based four-piece, Idle Hands, made a name for themselves with the release of their EP ‘Don’t Waste Your Time’ in 2018. Within four months they were back in the studio putting together eleven tracks to form their debut album. ‘Mana’ is the culmination of eight months’ worth of work for Idle Hands, honing their brand of gothic infused heavy metal. With the suitably dark titled lead single ‘Give Me to The Night’ already gaining positive feedback and airplay, what have Idle Hands got in store?
Opening with ‘Nightfall’ the listener is introduced to a driving riff orientated sound following a chiming clean guitar intro. The vocals of Gabriel Franco cut through the mix, with a delivery similar to the New Wave style. The tone of the band is firmly set with this initial track, a classic heavy metal sound featuring a driving rhythm section and duel guitar attack is matched with a reverb laden, aggressive yet restrained New Wave/Gothic style vocal. The track itself is highly infectious, pulling the listener in with its genre mixing, catchy melody and riffs and driving chorus. ‘Jackie’ ups the New Wave genre vibe with its lyrical content and delivery, the key change and dynamic shift for the chorus adds a further catchy edge to the music There’s a radio friendly sheen on the production for the track, all of the instrumentation is clearly identifiable and the reverb wash creates a sense of sweeping space. However, this does not detract from the musicianship. The foundation is held down with the drums of Colin Vranizan and Brandon Hill on Bass locking together. The duel guitars of Franco and Sebastian Silva provide palm muted riffs and intricate twin melodies to complement the vocals.
‘Cosmic Overdrive’ and ‘Don’t Waste Your Time’ carry on the music in the same vein as the opening two tracks. The latter has a more dark, gothic feel than the previous tracks. Initially clean guitar arpeggios play a key role on the movement of the verse melody, then the chorus sections feature an overdriven attacking shift. A well-executed and emotive guitar solo gives way to a heavier sound. Palm muted distorted guitars combine with a more aggressive rhythm section to see the track to a close with a wild vocal howl echoing out the last note. ‘Give Me to The Night’ is a highlight of the whole album and an easy choice for the lead single. With an intense punk like feel, it’s a possible example of how The Damned would have sounded if they had taken influence from the NWOBHM scene. Franco channels a lot of Dave Vanian in both lyrical content and vocal delivery, while the band make use of a rapid punk like rhythm combined with twinned galloping guitars. It’s a slice of goth inspired metal at it’s best with all of the band’s influences clearly on show mixed together with their individuality.
‘The Blade and The Will’ first featured on the band’s debut EP. Here it gets a slight reworking with a clearer production to tie it in with the album and additional vocal shouts, notably at the intro and following the guitar solo. The solo itself has been altered from the original release, shortened slightly and rather than fading back into the tracks main groove is abruptly cut into a palm muted chugging riff. The latter half of the album continues in the same way as expected. The ideas and themes laid down from the outset are reconfirmed and built upon. The musicianship holds up throughout, the rhythm section locks down the groove and feel of each track, driving the more aggressive numbers from the foundation up and backing off to allow for expressive dynamic changes. The twin guitar work continues to impress as solos are traded and catchy riffs and hooks compliment the vocal melodies and never overpower an individual track. The feel of the music retains a constant blend of metal and Goth/New Wave, track titles such as ‘Double Negative’ and ‘A Single Solemn Rose’ highlight the gothic genre tones before a note is played.
Some negative aspects of the album could be drawn from the production values of the tracks. While the music is undeniably very well mixed and allows for all of the instruments to have individual clarity without any one overpowering another. The quality is potentially too slick, giving not only an overly clean-cut radio friendly sound but also creates a danger of tracks bleeding into one another without identifiable differences. The song writing is good, each song has an individuality and the dynamics and use of instrumentation keeps the music fresh, but the production should also compliment the song writing to this end. On ‘Mana’ it has the effect of glossing over all the tracks to give one collective shiny presentation and removes a little of the soul from the music. In addition, the slight reworking of the ‘The Blade and The Will’ notably the changing of the solo and addition of vocal shouts that populate much of the albums tracks has taken away some of its raw edge and brought it into line with the shiny production aspect of the main body of work. Indeed, the vocal shouts from Franco on a number of the tracks occasionally come across as forced, perhaps added to give some raw edge to the polished sound. This is not the case every time, with the likes of ‘Give Me to The Night’ and ‘It’ll Be Over Before You Know It’ the shouts do add an anguished depth that promotes the gothic metal style.
Putting aside any potential negative doubts about being overly produced, wing clipped guitar solos or forced anguish. ‘Mana’ is a great debut album. Idle Hands have capitalised on what they brought forward with the EP and have shown that they can produce a high quality of music within a short space of time between studio session. They’ve successfully blended classic heavy metal with a New Wave/Gothic style. Their music is sure to have a wide appeal and it will be interesting to see how they continue to develop their sound further and bring the tracks to a live audience as there is some really excellent music on offer.
- ‘Mana’ is released on 10 May. You can get your copy HERE.
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