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On their snotty and exuberant debut, the Hands play classic bad-boy rock and roll, acting like sketchy guys who want nothing more than to drink all your booze and trash the furniture. As the Washington state-based quintet spews slashing, tuneful guitar rock in the mode of the Strokes and Arctic Monkeys, front man John Healy evokes the gleeful belligerence of a young Mick Jagger, ranting about natural disasters, religious visions, and that old favorite, treacherous chicks. “I’ve never been so happy to see a woman go,” he snarls in the surging “Hold Your Head Up,” revealing a glimpse of the sexual anxiety underlying his arrogance.
