Tremor can be filed into what is by now a well-established genre: the post-lockdown catharsis record. Human Hand – guitarists Joe Hollick (Wolf People) and Karl Eden ( tRANSELEMENt), and drummer Jonathan Dickin (MUMS, Honey Spider) – recorded the album in two days, a process involving noisy improvisation, tape manipulation and real-time overdubs.
Northern Englanders Hollick and Eden started playing music together after meeting at an Acid Mothers Temple show. Like that band, Human Hand deals in heavy psychedelia, but useful comparison more or less ends there. Tremor is arguably easier to listen to than your average AMT record, it is softer-cornered, groovy, post-rock sludge.
There are some very enjoyable moments here, particularly the lead-heavy doom of “Tyrant”; the ambient prog of the title track (which wouldn’t be out of place in a Safdie brothers film); and the “Snowblind” riffs on “Triffid.”
Anyone who has ever been involved in a garage jam session will likely relate to the feeling of being ‘in the zone,’ of getting lost in a powerful musical energy exchange. Here, it’s clear that these talented musicians are in the zone with one another. But as Tremor hops from one track to the next, there’s a disjointedness that keeps the record from gelling completely. As is often true with the post-lockdown record, listening to Tremor feels a bit like eavesdropping on a moment of long-delayed abandon. It’s not totally coherent, but it is, in its own way, quite beautiful.
