Freezing Hands-Empty the Tank

Current Phase If you need to get up to speed with Freezing Hands, now’s the time as the wheels are already spinning on Empty the Tank. Their fourth proper album continues their course, while also capturing their forward momentum and revealing new factets. Like the lightning quick album releases of the mid-sixties, this has surprisingly arrived shortly after 2022’s It Was a Good Run. With its similar themes, constant through-lines and overall continuity, Empty the Tank could even be considered conceptually as a Double Album, in the grand ‘70s tradition, when paired with its immediate predecessor. They have definitely honed their sound and once again found their distinctive spot between pop, punk and rock 'n’ roll. In addition to delivering memorable hooks, melodies and harmonies last heard in the late ‘70s power-pop heyday of the Nerves, 20/20 and the Beat, they also venture into '60s pastoral pop that somehow connects Tucson’s sunny Reid Park and parking lots to the Zombies’ "Beechwood Park" through the mists of the Kinks’ “Village Green.”

Giving the Youngsters a Run for their Money Uni Boys and the Reflectors from Southern California and the Whiffs from Kansas City are currently leading power-pop into Century 21. All of these combos feature 1979-ish radio-ready melodies and a compressed sound that is laced as tight as Shoes. In contrast, Freezing Hands are able to add a spaciousness in their sound made by lived experience, years of work and exposure to a wider range of influences. Musically, their harmonies are able to give their sound an expansiveness that matches their panoramic Tucson surroundings. On the production side, their latest is once again presented in suitable mid-fi stereo and bears the production trademarks of Midtown Island Studio. 

Dateland Records Recording Stars

They project a rare symmetry in their sound. However, the abundant hooks, harmonies and melodies bely and contrast with the lyrics. Underneath the hood are daring, intricate and integrated lyrics, steeped in the Kinksian tradition and not afraid of addressing the state of oneself, Tucson and the world.  Moreover, the lyrics do not expect, nor receive any answers.

"When We Get to Tucson You'll See Why" ("Thumbelina" by the Pretenders) Perhaps some of their sonic vastness and lyrical depth can be attributed to the symbiotic relationship between Tucson and the band. The band is imbued with a certain Tucson-ness, but it’s not provincial or a yearning to move to the costly coast. It’s a certain openness known by those who have lived there and dismissed by those who don’t know, don’t value or don’t care. There is indeed something undefinable in the desert air and its live and let live ethos that can spur creative pursuits. Reflecting the unpredictable atmosphere of Tucson itself, Travis writes lyrical assemblages with straightforward, skewed and serpentine perspectives all clashing, converging and co-existing within the hooks and harmonies. Overall, there is a magnetic pull that encourages further exploration and engagement way beyond the usual cycle of point, click, skip ad, and scroll on.

Moving Targets

As previously mentioned, there’s an even stronger slant into the Kinks as heard on side one’s “Sunny-Free” and “For the Taken.” Further, they offer their own distinctive and dramatic take by applying sardonic character sketches and studies to their own locale. While the geographical settings for the bands drastically differ, their milieus overlap as Freezing Hands trade out football (soccer) for baseball, pubs for strip mall dive bars and rolling bucolic greens for parking lots, foothills and flatlands sprawling with red tile roofs. Until a recent revisit of those post-Turtles Flo & Eddie records spurred by reading Mark Volman’s recent book Happy Forever, I had not previously perceived Flo & Eddie's significant influence on Freezing Hands. It all makes sense as Ray Davies produced Turtle Soup by the Turtles.

  TONIGHT

“Wax Cups” evokes both "Drivin' Around" by Raspberries and the magic feeling that can still be felt when one returns to the Pacific Coast and observes the breaking waves and feels the cool of those misty California nights. In addition, it’s also a celebration of the option to go out once again. Meanwhile, “High Diver!” expresses the anticipatory aspects of that power-pop belief in the literal and figurative TONIGHT with the appropriate levels of top-down buoyancy in the grand tradition of Raspberries and ‘70s Beach Boys with the keys adding a Cars-like gleam. The lyrics shift easily from the slapstick and satirical to the clever and contemplative before twisting back on themselves. 

Freezing Hands live at the Yucca in Tempe, AZ (March 2023)
L-R: Kevin Conklin (bass), Travis Spillers (guitar, lead vocals), Matt Rendon (drums, backing vocals) Scott Landrum (keys, backing vocals)

Inherent intuition Upon first hearing the song title announced by Travis when they played the Yucca Tap Room in Tempe last March, I thought that “I Was a Teenage Piece of Shit” was going to be an “ID Slips In” exploitative throwaway. It’s actually a reflective rumination on redeeming yourself in the universe for past harms done to others. It also actually flips the script on the usual narratives where oldsters gloat about how much they got away with in one’s youth. It concludes with the never ending quest “To Be a Much Better Human,” while musically it’s somewhat of a sweeping continuation of “Here with the Babies” from the preceding album. The song also displays their intuitive sense of combining “inside baseball” details with harmonies and relentless Stooges' “1969” inspired handclaps. Matt’s remakrable drumming in Freezing Hands recalls the great Clem Burke and the late Phil Seymour. (His propulsive, yet intricate style of beat-pop-jazz drumming has to be seen and heard live.) Overall, it’s a brave display of their growth and development and knowing when one has to take things head on or when one needs to consider approaching from other angles. 

Arrangements & Rearrangements

Concluding side one is the cheeky “Got Me a Friend” which could be a concert closer and/or slotted in the upcoming movie Peter Rabbit 3: Naughty by Nature during a festive montage. 

Most groups typically front load their albums with the uptempo numbers up on side one to make a grand entrance and grab attention.  Freezing Hands are not most groups as they work in reverse with the speediest and catchiest numbers on side two. 

Beat Boys in the Jet Age The album takes off on side two and goes from strength to strength, while prospecting similar power-pop territory as the Deathray Davies, Flop and the Lolas. “Destiny, Destiny” is total next phase new wave rock 'n' roll combining 20/20, the Taxi Boys, Greg Kihn Band with Look Sharp!-era Joe Jackson. The on-target lyrics delve into notions of changing fate in the face of the pre-ordained. “Disappearing Bug or Horse” returns them to the valley of the Dickies merging with TVT-period Guided by Voices. Besides the aforementioned American influences, there are also hints of UK mod revival sounds like the Look UK and the Lambrettas-especially when those bands incorporated Broadway showtunes influence like the Look UK covering “Tonight” from West Side Story.

 

Topsy-Turvy Self-referential songs are tricky as they can work or they can fall flat. Thankfully “My Guitar” is more Young Fresh Fellows than goofy Too Much Joy. “Taxiing” raises the question: “Is that a riveting AC/DC riff by way of Hoodoo Gurus?” "Friend-O" unfolds as a rollicking barroom morality play and has the galloping kick  of “Kodachrome” by Paul Simon.

The enthralling “Nothin’ in the Tank” is this album’s tour de force. The song is already incorporated in their live set and immediately stood out at their aforementioned rare live show at the Yucca in Tempe last March. The “canvas sneakers power-pop” of the Nerves and the Beat arrives on the forefront. It’s a mini-masterpiece with layers of whirling vocals and cascading melodies before finishing in a round.

Nothing in Reserve Under constantly changing circumstances, Freezing Hands have remained true to their ambitious and distinctive approach of spanning musical decades to advance their harmonic, melodic and enduring sound of their own making. All this is made possible by their resolute commitment to rehearsals, recordings and live shows on top of the push & pull of workaday life. In a way, their undeterred pursuit to create their own captivating sound and realize their visions in the face of everything else are also major characteristics of the Old Pueblo of Tucson itself.

Freezing Hands-photo by Ed Arnaud
L-R: Kevin Conklin (bass), Travis Spillers (guitar, lead vocals), Matt Rendon (drums, backing vocals) Scott Landrum (keys, backing vocals)