Debut full-length album from Brighton garage/punk trio Gaffa Tape Sandy sees the band back on track after a tumultuous couple of years.
Release Date: 31st May 2024
Label: Alcopop! Records
Formats: CD / Vinyl / Digital
They formed in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk in 2015 whilst studying at West Suffolk College, but Gaffa Tape Sandy are yet another mainstay of the thriving musical hotbed we know as Brighton. The band’s current lineup is: Kim Jarvis (guitar, vocals), Catherine Lindley-Neilson (bass, vocals) and Robin Francis (drums, backing vocals) and their specialty is punky power-pop that takes on personal feelings and topical issues and packages them in songs that ooze with joy and vitality.
Hold My Hand, God Damn It is the band’s debut full-length album, but it’s far from being their first appearance on record – their 2017 EP, Spring Killing, won them a slot on the BBC Music Introducing Stage at that year’s Glastonbury Festival and further waves were duly generated by their 2018 single, Beehive, which was selected as Huw Stephens’ BBC Radio 1 Tip of the Week and won them a place in NME’s 100 Essential Acts listing for 2018. Since then, they’ve survived the cancellation of what was to have been their first UK headlining tour – you can blame the pandemic for that one – and the potentially fatal fallout from the breakup of Catherine’s and Kim’s romantic relationship. It’s been a tumultuous couple of years for Gaffa Tape Sandy but, as Hold My Hand, God Damn It amply demonstrates, the band has emerged from their tunnel stronger and hungrier than ever.
The band describe their mission as “A simple desire to make loud and exciting music” and Hold My Hand… certainly fulfills that particular ambition. Throughout its gestation, the band were keen to ensure that their debut album would feature as much new music as possible and, ironically, it was the shattering setbacks that they suffered that inspired them to sit down and create the new material, as Kim explains: “Having our headline tour cut short by lockdown felt like having the wind completely taken from our sails. We didn’t really get a chance to process it as, suddenly, there was this catastrophe happening that hugely outweighed it. Things felt pretty rocky for a while and we all had to step back from the band and music in general. Thankfully, we’re all really good mates and that friendship between us all pretty much kept us together and also really inspired the writing of the album.”
And, perversely, it was lockdown that helped mitigate the potentially disastrous impact of that relationship breakdown, as Kim goes on to explain: “In some twisted way, we got lucky. Catherine and I broke up just before the headline tour; it was an emotional rollercoaster and I’m considering the option of making a sardonic rom-com out of it all, or maybe a disaster movie. We were lucky though, as, after that, the lockdowns forced us to have a huge break from the band and touring, which is exactly what we needed in the circumstances.”
So, what about the music?
A short burst of feedback from Kim’s guitar fires the starting pistol, and we’re off. Opening track, Body, is as fast, furious and punchy as you’d expect. It’s got a poppy charm, too, particularly during the short interlude when the guitars back away. Sometimes, two minutes and seventeen seconds is all the time that’s needed to bring a special sparkle into your humdrum existence!
Catherine takes the lead vocal and Robin’s drums provide the drive to Scrapbook, a song that combines a relentless guitar riff (think The Passenger and you won’t be far off the mark) with snatches of something that’s almost reggae and a guitar solo that touches the outer fringes of psychedelia, before we move on to a different kind of combination – this time, it’s uncompromising punk and soulful rap, and each genre benefits from its exposure to the other – for Dead 2 Me. Kim’s refrain of “One-two-three-four-five and you’re dead to me” gets wilder and wilder as the song drifts to its sizzling, smoky, close.
Catherine’s bass throbs as her, and Kim’s, vocals soar on the deceptively jaunty Evil, an infectious slice of power pop that’s packed with observational lyrics, and the power of Catherine’s bass is even stronger in the tuneful, poppy, Get Off. But it’s back to the full force of gritty punk for Split, the album’s lead single. Down ‘n’ dirty guitar riffs and sprinkles of punchy lead guitar are topped off with vocals that overspill with anger and urgency.
There’s a short break, in the form of Rosemary, a brief, mellow, ballad with a gentle, vulnerable, vocal from Catherine, before the pace picks up once again for the magnificent Devour – perhaps my pick of the album. Catherine’s cod-reggae verses contrast wildly with Kim’s hardcore choruses, propelled along by Robin’s 200 mph drumbeat. Drums and vocals are at their absolute limits of energy and passion and Catherine’s bass is, once again, rock-solid.
Catherine and Kim share the lead vocals on the tight, bright, in-your-face, Medicine. It’s another one of the songs that edges towards the poppy end of the power-pop spectrum and, without question, it’s the only song I’ve ever heard that includes the word “Emphysema.”
Perhaps the album’s two most vital songs are the ones that, along with another short ballad-break, wrap up Hold My Hand… Energy is described as “The breakup song for Kim and Catherine” and, despite the inevitable regret and vitriol in the lyrics, it’s a bright, upbeat number. Catherine delivers a confident, accusatory, lead vocal as she sings lines like: “It’s all in the details, so just gimme the details” and “I never realized you were taking all my energy.” And, best of all, it seems as though the pair are reconciled, if not reunited.
And, after the short interlude of Holding Hands, the album’s second dreamy ballad, it’s on to Queasy, a song that was written during the weeks that followed the tragic murder of Sarah Everard and is, perhaps, the album’s keystone track. It’s something of an epic – more power ballad than punky thrash – awash with Catherine’s resonant bass and crashes of Kim’s guitar. Kim puts everything into his passionate, dramatic vocal as he delivers the song’s refrain: “Stop taking this all so seriously” as the song surges towards its chaotic, cacophonous, climax.
There’s no doubt about it: after the tribulations of the past couple of years, 2024 is seeing Gaffa Tape Sandy right back on track. The triumph of Hold My Hand… is to be followed by a resumption of their headline touring itinerary in September and October (dates are available here) and the band are buzzing at the prospect. As Kim says: “We can’t wait to get back on the road in 2024 and we’ve got some really exciting opportunities coming that weren’t available to us before. See ya soon, guys!”
Watch the official video to Energy – one of the album’s vital tracks – here:
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