"Happy As Can Be" - Cut Off Your Hands
Put Phil Spector, the Beatles, and New Order in a blender and out comes "Happy As Can Be." (Well, it works in my blender.) There's the spacious, bashy wall of sound, the "Please Please Me" melody, and the deadpan yet also semi-melodramatic club vibe. Oh, and maybe throw Split Enz in the blender too, since these guys are from New Zealand and lead singer Nick Johnston has a bit of a Tim Finn-ish yelp going on there, especially in the chorus. (Yeah, okay, it's a big blender.)
I'm fascinated, as I always tend to be, by the 'wall of sound' sound--the overall effect is conspicuous but when you try to pick it apart, the specifics kind of scurry away. What is it that's making the sound, anyway? A big, rumbling drum and a distinct echo is part of it; clangy but indistinct guitar sound is part of it, as is a choral-like backing noise, coming from either voices or instruments or both. Mixing a bell in with the beat--always a good touch, for some reason. Whatever's doing it, Cut Off Your Hands is here to deliver it to us; on the quartet's MySpace page, next to "Influences" is one name: Phil Spector.
"Happy As Can Be" is the title track to the band's new EP, their third, scheduled for a digital release on Frenchkiss Records this week. Their full-length debut is expected out in early 2009.
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