AP Track Review
The track Chacabuco by Right Hand Left Hand, a two piece complex post rock outfit made up of Andrew Plain (drums, guitars) and Rhodri Viney (guitars/vox/drums) from Cardiff, Wales who each jam on guitars and drums centered around a loop station and featuring vox by Taliesyn Kallstrom from the alt-rock band Estrons (also from Cardiff, Wales) literally breathes half step chaos into a slow simmering burn of a song pushing anxiety and goosebumps up from under your skin.
From the onset, the progression can and does feel like a sort of spy caper musical trope, it feels familiar but the emotions that swirl around it enhance by inhalations vocalized with an actors aplomb make it work. You feel the fright, the angst make the dangerous musical alliance real and so very intriguing. It, from a rock standpoint, feels exhilarating, feels bad ass. If you are under it's spell you as just a listener you want to give yourself up to it and if you are a musician you want to grab your instrument and play it. As I listened, to the cool guitar lines and the incredibly tight drum beat all I thought, worried about was if the vocalist could live up to the level of cool rock bravado and then Taliesyn Kallstrom's voice slides in. I have never had the pleasure of hearing her band Estrons so I did not know what to expect. Kallstrom's vox thrilled me and I could feel the smile growing on my face. Her vocal aesthetic falls somewhere between Karen O's (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) self assured coo and wail and Holly Winter's (Repenter) feral nature. As incredible as her vocal crescendo are Plain and Viney ramp up the big rock guitars into a virtual firestorm of high end pearly riffs and quick fanning creating a cacophony of rock goodness overlapping sounds. Incredible, fucking incredible.
‘Chacabuco’ is a Chilean ghost town set up to house workers for a nitrate mine, but was abandoned 14 years later as synthetic nitrate became widespread and decimated the industry. Decades later, Pinochet used it as a concentration camp and surrounded it with landmines that are still there.
The song Chacabuco is one of the 11 tracks on the bands upcoming album Zone Rough, each track referring to a location on Earth where something horrible has happened whether a travesty against the planet or acts of evil against it's occupants.
Right Hand Left Hand's album Zone Rough drops November 15th.
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Robb Donker
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
Right Hand Left Hand release their new single ‘Chacabuco’ today. Lifted from their forthcoming new album Zone Rouge, it features former Estrons front-woman Taliesyn Kallstrom on vocals. A simmering, brooding post-rock dark cloud full a gathering menace, the taut rhythms and an extraordinary vocal performance swirling into explosive crescendos.
‘Chacabuco’ is a Chilean ghost town set up to house workers for a nitrate mine, but was abandoned 14 years later as synthetic nitrate became widespread and decimated the industry. Decades later, Pinochet used it as a concentration camp and surrounded it with landmines that are still there. It is in the process of being restored by its sole inhabitant.
Right Hand Left Hand are back with a brand new album. Following on from their self-titled, Welsh Music Prize-nominated second album, their third offering, Zone Rouge released on the 15th of November, tells the story of humanity’s contempt for the earth beneath us, the air above us and the people around us.
Our fractured planet lays the groundwork for the 11 new tracks on Zone Rouge. Each referring to a location on Earth where something bad has happened: An act of corruption against the planet, an act of evil against fellow humans and occasionally both.
Recorded and produced by Charlie Francis (Future of the Left, REM, Robyn Hitchcock) at Cardiff’s Musicbox Studios, Andrew Plain (drums/guitars) and Rhodri Viney (guitars/vocals/ drums) continue to build and develop their trademark sound: looped and layered guitars and driving powerful drums that are intercut with atmospheric ambience.
The album will follow on 15th November, 2019. It will be available digitally, on CD, and on limited edition double clear vinyl.
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