What The Hidden Hand offers us is an album filled with doomrock. This means that it’s not extremely low and slow, but heavy and quite down-tempo nonetheless. To be honest it’s the first album I hear from this band, and the more I listen to it, the more I like it. It has a very relaxed atmosphere all through the album, so relaxed that one might just call this hippie-doom. And I don’t think I’m offending anyone with that term to be honest.

 

The album is produced slightly noisy, suiting the style perfectly. I simply love the messy drum sound, it really entangles with the bass and guitar. The vocals finish it of marvellously. But indeed, what do you expect from musicians that have been doing this for over 25 years. I must mention that the words Black Sabbath appear in my head more than once whilst listening, but I think The Hidden Hand has more of a hippie approach than those founding fathers do.

 

It’s hard for me to say anything else about the progression they’ve made, coming from two previous albums; Divine Propaganda and Mother, Teacher, Destroyer. I noticed the classical rock thing in the heavy dark atmosphere, which seems to be new, just like lyrical topics that regard historic events instead of just politically charged talk. To me the lyrics don’t matter too much, the music speaks for itself I think. So if you’re into something smooth and relaxing that comes from a classical and traditional background but is innovative nonetheless; try to find The Hidden Hand’s last album; The Resurrection Of The Whiskey Foote.