Noisy Neighbors

New sounds from close to home

January 14, 2011|Jonathan Perry, Globe Correspondent

HANDS AND KNEES WHOLESOME

Self-released

How do you best a killer single like “James Brown Died on Christmas Day’’? Or your last two terrific albums — that would be 2007’s self-titled debut and 2009’s “Et Tu, Fluffy?’’ — for that matter? The answer is you don’t. If you’re Hands and Knees, you just hope and pray that your third dispatch of alternately sweet, sneaky, and sardonic indie-pop measures up.

Lucky for them —and us — the Boston foursome’s got talent and tunes to burn, and they waste no time showing off both. On the opener, “Throw Me From the Bridge of Flowers,’’ singer-guitarist Joe O’Brien sounds like he’s in a giddy hurry to get to wherever he’s going, with the band galloping hard behind him.

The group’s strength — besides a flair for well-turned hooks and dash of grand drama — lies in the sweet and sour contrast of O’Brien’s and bassist Carina Kelly’s voices. The Greenhornes-y garage-soul vamp that animates both “99’’ and the smoky, spooky “Cadillac,’’ for instance (offering further proof of the group’s impressive stylistic reach). And Kelly — gauzily distant and double-tracked — sounds as if she’s singing from the celestial beyond as a cycling guitar figure keeps time to the quick-step waltz of “I Won’t Miss You.’’ While it may be the prettiest thing here, the song is upstaged by a pair of wiry pop stunners: “Sitting at the Piano Disappearing’’ and “Dancing on Your Tears.’’ There’s lots to love here, and “Wholesome’’ more than measures up.

Hands and Knees host an LPrelease show at Great Scott Jan. 27. To download “Wholesome’’ (free or with a donation of your choice between Jan. 18-Feb. 18), visit www.handsandknees.bandcamp.com.