Back in the carefree, unaffected days of my youth, Ladyfinger (ne) would have totally rocked my balls off. Long before I became a jaded, crusty critic who had heard it all before, I only cared about the music. I didn't factor in labels or where each band's sound would fit within the grand scheme of things. Nor did I consider originality or influences or press packets. I liked what I liked and that was that. Ladyfinger (ne) is a band I would have liked a lot during those formidable days of wonder.

Heavy Hands, the appropriately titled debut for this Omaha based four-piece, comes at a curious time for the Saddle Creek label and rock music in general. Could it be that these tee shirt clad every-dudes are holdovers from a bygone era? A missing link from the mid / early 90's underground hard rock revolution? Reminiscent of aggressive, post punk fare like Seaweed and Helmet, it's not often that I hear no-frills rock like this anymore. More importantly, I never saw it coming from the Saddle Creek label.

Rife with buzzsaw guitars, chugging drums and a singer that can wail like his hair has just caught fire; Heavy Hands is refreshing in its veracity and grows on me more with each listen. Somewhere between the stuttering rhythm section of Queens of the Stone Age and the lumbering heaviness of Motorhead are they key ingredients to the Ladyfinger (ne) sound. Matt Bayles who has also worked with Isis and Mastadon is behind the boards on this one, lending the record a decidedly brazen sound. But be warned, this ain't your older brother's kind of metal. It's not punk either. This is something new that sounds old, but not in an old way. Too bad its ten songs clock in at just over thirty minutes. Could it be that Ladyfinger (ne) knows pretension is a carcass best left to the wolves?

If the cover alone can reveal anything about the sounds brought forth on Heavy Hands, let it be the aggression in the ritualistic dance of death. Tigers and zebras gracefully jockeying for survival in the half - light of dawn. Uninhibited, whimsical and instinctive. You, the zebra, whose blood will run hot, pooling in great depths atop the sands of carnage should heed notice - the listener becomes the hunt and the hunted.

So go on and give it a spin if you yearn for the calling of untamed adolescence, free from the bias and preconceived notions of how a rock album should sound these days. But don't hold the band responsible if you've heard these sounds before. After all, they're not playing for the critic in you.

Original Review