Open Hand

Stoned, stumped and stoked: just some of the feelings you can expect when you hear Open Hand. Bringing together elements of stoner and prog metal, acid biker rock, hardcore and punk, these rockers without borders leave you vainly groping for the right label. On the band’s sophomore Trustkill release, You and Me, the Hand is extended with Tool’s expansive atmospherics, Smashing Pumpkins’ warm fuzziness and Queens of the Stone Age’s gift for poppy stoner melodies. That same hand then thwacks you in the ears with crushingly heavy riffs that put the “UNH!” back in “unholy.” Few seasoned outfits are up to the task of balancing big, dumb, sexy rock with grandiose musical visions, so Open Hand’s deft showing this early in its career is all the more impressive. Crunchy, chewy rock that really satisfies.