The Dream | Open Hand
Written by Dan on July 16, 2008
Home >> Album Reviews >> The Dream | Open Hand
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My list of punk/indie bands in my music library is admittedly very short. Perhaps it’s because that sort of music is typically more about the message than the music that comes along with it, but every now and then I come across a band that goes against the grain. Open Hand struck me particularly because of the guitar work and intricate drums, and their singer… actually sings.

The Dream (2003) is actually a compilation with two self-released EPs, Evolution (2000) and Radio Days (1999), concatenated with a B-side slapped on at the end. I first came across Open Hand because someone had mislabeled their track The Dream as a Thursday original. Aside from the singer sounding completely different and the drums being significantly more complicated, I guess I could see how someone might confuse the two bands… But I knew something didn’t smell right. After a few hours of digging around discussion boards, I found it was really by Open Hand. To this day, I don’t know if it was an honest mistake or an intentional way to get their music out… nor do I know if it was even the band that did that (most likely not, in my opinion).

Radio Days has a much clearer punk influence than does Evolution, particularly with the second vocalist. It’s not quite my style, but I was completely won over by the drums and just enough non-punk singing. Seriously, why can’t there be more drummers like Alex Rodriguez? Evolution took a bit more straight-up rock influence, but still made it clear what their initial influences were. It had harder guitars, more dynamics, and offered more melodic vocals. Evolution is definitely my favorite of the band’s releases… unless you count the two B-sides I managed to find. Someday and 6/26 did to Evolution what Evolution did to Radio Days… and I loved it.

If you do a little bit of research, you’ll find Open Hand has had a plethora of ex-members. I have no idea what the deal is, but they have had more than their share of band members and changed quite a bit since their release of The Dream. The following release, You and Me (2005), was very different and it’s unclear to me if that was due to changes in the line-up, though my guess is yes. You and Me really took me by surprise. I was very uneasy about it at first, but came around to it after absolving my expectations. Albeit a good one, It’s just not the same band. And from the sound of it, it looks like they’ve done it again for a release to come out later this year. By now they’ve almost entirely removed any punk or hard rock influence.

Despite their mildly disagreeable stylistic changes for You and Me… and their certainly disagreeable changes for the upcoming release, their first two releases were thoroughly enjoyable. To make it better, you can even get both of them with a B-side on just one album. If the audio clip I posted gets you even mildly interested, I strongly suggest checking out the track The Dream, as that was the song that sold me on the band… I just didn’t have the heart to chop it up for a clip.

Viewing 9 Comments

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    Is it just me, or are all four of those guys wearing the same shoes?
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    Yeah, and they all look like their dog just died. Speaking of which - why do musicians seemingly always feel the need to look sad or pissed-off for these band pictures? Aren't you supposed to enjoy making music? I guess they're just trying to be cool.
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    They're pissed off because they had to have that picture taken instead of play music.
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    No, they are pissed off because they know some strange dudes are going to be on some blog some where talking sh!t about them. (I no way am I refering to "obnoxiouslistners.com"; but rather some really lame blog on AOL or something. This site totally rules, and no one on here is strange at all.)
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    Hah ... nice cover up! Sounded almost like when I called you 'old'!
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    My favorite tracks from this group were "The Dream", "This Is The End", and "Life As Is". I would agree this is one of the few punk style bands that I really enjoyed.
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    Nice drum work on the second part of the sample provided; I hope people see the listening controls under all of your posts! Good stuff!

    And you bring up an interesting point with your "actually sings" comment. I don't want to start out saying that yelling and screaming is awesome; that wouldn't be my point - but I think there are definitely some less than perfect voices out there that on their own may not be that great but once mixed in with the band - end up sounding great. I'll use another punk band as an example - Against Me! - yeah, Tom Gabel may not be Scott Weiland; but his voice fits perfect with the style of music Against Me! is all about. It's the whole package that makes them good (good...in my opinion). What I'm saying is that there is sometimes too much emphasis placed on how good the lead singer is, or how good the drummer is, etc... from purely a "musical" standpoint. What I find is that it's the total complete sound that makes a band good. You can put together the best players in the world and form some super band and the sound will probably suck. You have a better chance of putting together a bunch of less than great musicians that click well and the sound ends up the most kick ass of all. Sometimes it takes getting past a certain aspect of the band that you don't like at first, giving some time to allow yourself to be sucked in to the true vibe of the music. A voice that you maybe didn't like at first...is now part of that sound and all the sudden you seem to "get it" - even if they can't "actually sing".
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    I thought his drumming with everything he did in Open Hand was excellent... also very unique and easy to identify. Alex Rodriguez is currently the drummer for Saosin, but I don't like them nearly as much him in Open Hand. They're not bad... but his drumming doesn't ever seem to take the focus as it did in Open Hand.

    I almost nearly entirely agree with your singing blurb. Singing isn't necessary (e.g. I love Isis and Opeth), but i see screaming completely different from bad singing. I don't know who Against Me! is, so this isn't necessarily directed at them, but I can't handle bad singing. They better at least be in key and be able to hold a note.

    One of my favorite local (used to be local anyway) bands was Breaking Pangaea. They're singer wasn't that great, but as you say, the package as a whole was really very good. Plus he looked a lot like Garth from Wayne's World. While I don't think singers have to be immaculate, there is certainly a threshold for which I'm suddenly unwilling to listen any further... but that's really the case for any musical instrument.

    What I mean when I said actually sing was that he sings as opposed to the raw/scratchy screaming that is common in indie/punk music... not that he was necessarily a good one (although he is a pretty decent one).
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    Ah ha, well said...this makes me think that our major difference in listening tastes is due to this threshold being much lower for me than than you!

    If interested, you can stream Against Me! music from their web site: http://www.againstme.net
 
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