Handsome Furs are not a message band and they are not political, but Handsome Furs are a message band and they are political.The juxtaposition of cold, metronomic, electronic beats, courtesy of
Alexei Perry, with the jagged, dissonant and frail, broken or breaking,
guitars of Dan Boeckner portray what it is to be a human being at the
bottom of the 21st century. It underlines the confusion you feel as
your best friends are conveyed to you via a series of ones and zeros
passing through lines and cables and microwaves; the same confusion
felt witnessing the pure, wholesome thrill of a band of musicians
pouring their hearts out on stage, through someone’s cell phone as
pixelated streaming video; the profound and bitter frustration of your
long-distance relationship with the world up against a burning,
alcohol-soaked sunrise as you admit some things you never thought you
would; your constant feelings of inadequacy intertwined with the
omnipotence modern technology grants us all. You are there, yet somehow
you never are. As we all are and are not.
You are left with a rhythmic and empowering programmed beat interrupted
by the warm, reverberating fuzz tone of vibrating strings on wood hit
hard enough to shatter skyscrapers. Over it all, a perfectly imperfect
voice roars images of landscapes, maps of forgotten continents ripe
with history, and you are left feeling as human and alive and wide-eyed
as you should be every single morning. handsomefurs.com
