Lunglight

iTunes Review

Shaky Hands still have the shambling, raggedy pop sound that drove their self-released debut in 2007, and still rely on rhythm-driven tunes bursting with warm, playful percussion and gently melancholic vocals and lyrics. But there’s a darker shadow cast here. Foot-stomping tambourines and booming bass drums can’t lift the brooding “World’s Gone Mad” or “Loosen Up” out of their beautiful gloom, and the anxious “We Are Young” seems intent on deeper thoughts, as the guitars jab and stutter with tension. The shimmery clickety-clack of “Air Better Come” morphs into a glorious hum of nervous guitar and bass picking, recalling the late, great Clean from New Zealand, and even the Velvet Underground. (The spirits of these bands lives in various tracks, like “You’re the Light” and the lovely “Wake the Breathing Light.”) But, as exemplified on their debut, the Hands excel at music evoking the warmer seasons: guitars swing lazily throughout like a hammock on a summer afternoon, and they flitter like a hummingbird on the breezy and romantic “Show Me Your Life.”