Open Hand
The Dream

The Open Hand are a Californian band hailing specifically from Hollywood (yes indeed!), originally formed by Justin Isham (vocals and guitar), Michael Anastasi (bass), Beau Burchell (guitar), and Alex Rodriguez (drums).

Their musical style initially appears very anchored to punk-rock, power-pop sounds and similar, not straying too far from the turmoil of groups that populate the genre, and it is still quite ordinary and "academic" compared to the influences that in a few years will personalize their sound. "The Dream" is the debut of the quartet dating back to 2003, far from what will be the stylistic mix of its troubled successor "You And Me," but already veiled with the subtle melancholy that pervades its notes, often sharpened by angry vocal and guitar abrasions. In a sonic landscape still quite banal, however, one can already glimpse the lights that will lead the group to its maturation.

"The Dream" opens with the ring of a telephone that precedes the recording of a phone call. It is just the first of a series of spoken inserts scattered throughout the album. Then starts "In Your Eyes": the Open Hand immediately hit the accelerator hard and cover in just two and a half minutes a highway made of gritty riffs, angry vocals, and melodious openings in the refrain. It is the most energetic piece of an album that instead makes moments of reflection its true soul. The acoustic intro of "Life As Is" immediately brings us back to what is the true dimension of the work. The piece then continues with melodic punk-rock accelerations and develops on a fairly tested compositional script, typical of many tracks present here: a sustained but never explosive pace, powerful and continuous guitar breaks (which at certain moments even recall James Iha of the Smashing Pumpkins in works like "Siamese Dreams" and "Gish"), percussive and often offbeat drums (excellent work by Rodriguez), sudden acoustic appearances, a voice that sings desperately, however, preferring vocal harmonies to screams, present in just a couple of pieces.

The diamond is still raw, and many songs end up resembling each other: "11th Street", "This Is The End", "Thought Process". Nevertheless, there are significant variations from the norm: "The Struggle", opened by a chorus of primordial voices that develops into a track with a very varied structure, with an alternation of reflective and more aggressive parts; "Radio Days", which also features electronic touches, "Forever", whose simple melody immediately sticks in the head. The title track is then the musically and emotionally best episode of the album and is the song that most anticipates what will be "You And Me": acoustic phrases alternate with distorted guitars, in a continuous suspended tension that never reaches a climax or release, up to the refrain, of superb melodic intuition, and then that ending where the music disappears, and one finds oneself listening only to the embracing voices, before hearing a thunderstorm, and we can almost see the raindrops descending on the window glass...

The album closes with "Never Alone", the slowest track of the bunch, which opens with children's voices playing and closes to make way for a "Ghost Track"... only the album isn't over yet. The final track is, in fact, "6/26" which musically reconnects to the impact caused by "In Your Eyes" and represents an unusual ending for an ear that perhaps had already taken its leave with the previous song.

A chrysalis album for a group that will soon transform into a butterfly, or perhaps will completely change species of belonging...