Indian Handcrafts – ‘Creeps’

There was once a time when you would approach the notion of a two-piece band with a degree of trepidation. The idea of two musicians being able to create a rounded sound seemed a bizarre thought, and when removed from any studio trickery, how could they possibly not sound flat when playing live? Those misconceptions are now a thing of the past. All you need to do is look at the racket Death From Above 1979 are able to produce, or remember how massive The Black Keys have become, and it seems the “less is more” approach is sometimes the way to go.

With their second album ‘Creeps’, Canada’s Indian Handcrafts have managed to pull a blindfold over the eyes over the listener. The duo of Brandyn James Aikins and Daniel Brandon Allen sound more like a room filled with guitarists playing walls of amplifiers. Sounding bigger, bolder, and heavier than most two-piece bands could ever dream possible. Their dirty brand of stoner rock meets classic metal is far heavier than those that bother the mainstream, and makes the more popular bands with two members sound like music for clean shirts. The ones that feel edgy because they claim to listen to “rock music, like Coldplay”.

The eerie opening of ‘Down At The Docks’ makes the album title ‘Creeps’ feel apt. It carries a foreboding presence, before dropping into a full-on rock n’ roll swagger. The fuzz-driven riffs come on like early Queens Of The Stone Age, before eventually collapsing into a slower tempo, as if they have been dragged from Southern swamps. The bottom-end guitar tones are thick, and the drum sound colossal – meaning when you hear a voice shout “Oh, Jesus!” at the end of ‘It’s Late Queeny’, it proves to be fitting reaction when listening to Indian Handcrafts.

At the risk of this reviewer sounding like a cliché, Indian Handcrafts definitely crank things up to 11 in all the right places. The metallic crunch of ‘Brothers Underground’, and the searing power-metal of ‘Maelstrom’ channel the frantic guitar playing ‘Screaming For Vengeance’-era Judas Priest. Even if both Aikins and Allen’s vocals don’t quite reach the glass-shattering register of Rob Halford, they can certainly wail with the best of them.

Never ones to stick to one chosen path, ‘Degenerate Case’ is a distorted freak-out of thunderous guitars, and is unrelenting when complemented by Aikins’s off-kilter drumming. It is a stark contrast to the near eight minute ‘Rat Faced Snorter’, which is easily the finest, and most accomplished track on ‘Creeps’. It twists and turns through heavy desert-inspired riffs that could give Kyuss run for their money, and mind-bending moments of blissed-out psychedelia.

The beauty of Indian Handcrafts song writing is that they know the power of the riff. They have mastered every trick when it comes to writing solid heavy-rock songs. There is no pretension here, or self-absorbed virtuosity. ‘Creeps’ just straight up rocks, and is a wild, head-banging ride.

GLEN BUSHELL