Honey Claws- Honey Claws/Healer EP Review
Posted by Jesse Coy on 04.04.2009
Electro rap, techno funk coming straight out of Texas… can Honey Claws help you get your groove on and fix those two left feet?
Honey Claws Honey Claws/Healer EP
2008/April 2009
Tierra Publishing
THE INSIGHT TO A REVIEWER:
As has always been the case with music reviewing gigs from publication to publication, you have a couple modes of receiving material. There are bands you know and like and are set to go with receiving their newest baby for review. Those ones are easy. The other mode is… you become entrenched with a variety of PR machines, and through them, linked to a spider web of other smaller networks. Things get slipped your way here or there, and sometimes you lose track.
For newer bands, my policy is to sample them on their MySpace page, because nearly all of them have one nowadays, and it’s actually a great way to figure… hey, do I like this? How is this sounding? I hadn’t done that with Honey Claws. Their debut was sent my way toward the end of 2008. When PR folks get to know your style as a reviewer and what sort of music you like, sometimes they might just send a release to you anyway, untested by you, figuring its your style. You’d like it. This was likely the case here.
But I looked at the cover art, and thought, oh no, another bland indie rock alternative band. I just set it aside. I had a lot of other stuff on my plate. Stray papers piled atop folders and more papers in the general avalanche of debris that constitutes my workspace in this hamster-sized shoebox where I live… far, far away from you, I might add (the launch of missiles always imminent). Occasionally, I must clear the clutter. So I did. And I saw Honey Claws. So okay, sure… let’s listen to this and see if it makes it beyond a track or two before a gong.
AH! Pleasant surprise…
THE DEBUT:
The first track, “Shout Out,” kicks in, and I’m thinking, where the hell is this gonna go? You have these circus or carnival keyboards, a mild hiphop beat, and I actually liked the vocalist’s style quite a bit. That’s my biggest qualifier. If the vocalist is bland, see you later. This guy had a unique voice, and the music had all the quirkiness of Ween or early Beck. But then, just when you get used to that, the second track pulls a switcharoo. “E-Sticker” is framed in electro funk, vocalist Jon von Letscher in full rap mode. You can still apply Ween or Beck a bit, but it begins to fall by the wayside. Jon has an exceptional rap delivery. I begin thinking early Urban Dance Squad… or Bloodhound Gang, with the wit but minus the over the top comedy. By the third track, and here’s your test of a really good album, we’re busting through to new ground. “Zookeeper” has the vocalist machine gun rapping, and the music echoing and dark, with a creepy guitar riff and cool bass, all of it building to a shout-out chorus.
If the first three are really good, you have a winner.
Just a couple side notes or highlights on some of the other tracks would run as follows… “Numbers on the Wall” is one of the best tracks on the album, an upbeat, bouncing loud anthem. “Giant Town” is like the opening track in that it’s a one-stop (a style not repeated on the album), only with this one you have a very techno, ambient sound composition. “Digital Animal” has a nice refrain, the vocalist spitting out in stutter fashion the “di-di-di-di-di-di-di-digital animal.” It’s catchy. And with “APC,” I can identify with those unusual habits. It’s a smooth groove laid out telling of the less than conventional mindset.
BAND’S BACKSTORY ABRIDGED AND THE EP:
Here’s the cliff notes. The band consists of three underground deejays and house music producers with considerable experience (one from New Zealand). So musically it sounds quite good (sonically speaking). They began recording a full-length album, but lacked a vocalist. They found a local Austin rapper. They began generating more material, shuttling between Austin and Houston.
The Healer EP for me is as much a summary of their debut as a standalone EP. In essence, they take the various faces of their style used on the debut and put forth a song that sort of represents that, with “Pemporer” being a much more spacey, ambient groove, while opening “Lightning Killeye” is an upbeat party track. Equally upbeat, though rendered in a reggae style through the vocals is “Beat of the Wet Eye.” It closes with “Orange Kitty Stamp,” which my orange Asian cat quite likes, dark and brooding with electronica flourishes. She’s actually working on her scratching techniques.
The 411: The house, funk, hiphop, ambient, techno music is exceptionally rendered, glued together by Jon von’s distinct vocal delivery. Worth checking out…
