Full Review: Damiera - Quiet Mouth Loud Hands

Once head deep in the ’straight forward’ punk genre, Damiera now has all the makings of borrowing fans from other similar bands such as The Mars Volta.

Combining the higher pitched, sharp and quickly sung stylings of lead singer David Raymond with matching technical music provides a huge step forward for the once overly generic band. Besides the throw away intro which is highly predictable with its building static, the album starts with a bang from the title track. “Quiet Mouth Loud Hands” lays down an almost Alien Ant Farm like verse of guitar, drums, and vocals all mimicking each other which then jump into an equally impressive chorus. “Nailbiter” follows up as a very smooth, easy to swallow chaser with the vocals being the most interesting part of the song.

Someone in the recording studio definitely made use of the “grove knob” on the mixing board and turned it up on several songs including “Teacher, Preacher” and “Blinding Sir Bluest”. Both of the songs have melodies and rhythms that will get your head and foot moving more than you may have expected to while listening to a “punk” band. Just as a tip If you’re going to add an instrumental track to a CD it better be worth it and just as good or better than any other track on the album. “Woodbox” succeeds as it is phenomenal with the up tempo, acoustic guitar focused sound.

Damiera never strays too far from their traditional sound and thus if you like anything from the record you’ll probably be a fan of all of it, however “Weights For The Waiting” and “Chomatica” both drop the ball slightly. The songs lack uniqueness, or a flavor of their own, and while not bad songs, they’re just simply less exciting than the other tracks.

The album concludes in the absolute perfect way with “Trading Grins”. The music verges on light industrial, but the vocals and clapping during the chorus put the song over the top. ‘Quiet Mouth Loud Hands’ is basically the album I was looking for from this band and the exact way a band should naturally progress from album to album.