Hands Of Goro – Hands Of Goro Review

[Cover artwork by Christie Crapeticio / EmoWeasel]

Here is a random drawing of an individual who has recently encountered the fists of Goro whilst listening to Hands of Goro.

And now, let us bow our heads and give thanks to whichever ghostly deity we choose to rely upon whenst either shit or treasure hits the fan.

Oh, blessed Crom & friends, praised be to thee and thine for guiding our earthly consideration in the hallowed direction of the mighty POWER TRIO. Though their respective ranks may be scant, their gallantry and intensity has invigorated humankind lo these everlasting years. Mahalo for all the good graces and grand tidings at the behest of triumvirates such as The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Grand Funk Railroad, RUSH, ZZ Top, Triumph, The Police, Motörhead, King’s X, The Jam, Raven, Sodom and Reverend Bizarre, and may we continue to bask in the glory of the Old Guards AND their successors until thou doth deem our planet no longer fit for duration. Ahhhmen.

Please pass the sweet potato casserole.

Wait!! A potentially tricky matter concerning power trios: There’s not much wiggle room for suckage. Like, if the drummer is a little too rickety compared to their accomplices? Watch out for those lemon faces out in the crowd. Riffage consistently finding Sunday sermon levels of dull? Ain’t nobody got time for that! It’s a totally different ballgame compared to, say, an expansive folk metal band or a flippin’ ska troupe where you can fold a shunned bass player behind everything in a rude And Just for All Except Newsted kind of way. With a power trio everyone gets ample time under the microscope, and a band like Hands of Goro makes very good use of such a spotlight. Of course, it helps that this particular power trio is comprised of seasoned vets that include current and ex-members of The Lord Weird Slough Feg, Angel Witch, Spirit Adrift, Nite and the underrated Wild Hunt, but a palpable synergy pulses from the jump here that makes it seem feasible that these three disciples of Goro all crawled from the same primordial ooze approximately 2.5 million years ago. And ohhhhh, baby, when synergy, skill and pedigree convene? The results are so very often eff you en, FUN.

YES! FUN!! Fun is so dang fun. Know right now, if you don’t appreciate heavy metal that’s fully plated in fun, best close your Netscape browser right now and go mow some snow off your roof.

“BUT HOW! MUCH! FUN! IS! IT,” screamed the excited horde currently tinkling their bloomers.

Okay, it’s not exactly… Getting your pelvis buffed while taking a treasure bath levels of fun, but it IS a full throttle, hard ’n’ heavy wall-shaker devoted to a notorious video game villain who’s known for picking his teeth with the very recently excavated spines of his rivals. NOW THAT’S FUN, YOU HORSE APPLES. Here, tuck “Uncanny” into your magnificently good-looking ear canals and get ready to frolic your gigantic buns off:

Now, if you think “Uncanny” sounds uncannily familiar to bassist / vocalist Adrian Maestas’ additional ode to all things loud ’n’ proud, The Lord Weird Slough Feg, then you win yourself a prize. But is it ever a bad idea for an outfit such as this to flex a very bold Thin Lizzy muscle? Nope, sir, it is not. But there’s more to it than just Thin Feggy. Guitarist Tom Draper is an absolute beast, and the lead he fires off his frets around 1:45 is as molten as Matthias Jabs circa 1982 pushing the limits of his banana tights. So, yeah, add Scorps to the list of fun. And the hurtling speed the band eventually hits towards the song’s close? Also very fun, and something that pushes fully into Exciter / Heavy Metal Maniac speed metal terrain. Well may you duck, friends.

As for the stack of additional angles and influences explored here, there are well enough to capture a full herd of tempers and velocities. “Prince of Shokan” opens the album with the garage rocking sizzle of early Hellacopters pressed through a stompin’ KISS filter, and deep tracks like “Waste of Blood” and “End to End” sport a notably bumptious and buoyant “keep on truckin’” strut similar to what was expressed through the early works of the underrated (and equally power trio’d) The Rods. Additionally, we hear nods to another LORDLY Bay Area power trio, Brocas Helm, particularly the way a song such as “Demonizer” conjures the sheer force of “Skullfucker” and jusssssst barely manages to hold onto the rails. An appreciable heaviness also lurks, expressed in boldface via the back-to-back strikes of “21st Century Plague” (beat it, covid) and “You Have No Face,” both of which display a more sinister and shadowy tone, with the latter almost hitting a thrash stride similar to the more chunky approach of early Faith or Fear. And finally, given everything else that’s gone down, how could we not expect to come face-to-face with the bright, inordinately melodic footprint of the Fire Down Under-era of Riot, perhaps best expressed by the album’s hustling closer “Archduke of Fear.” That brief moment of mellowness at the midpoint of the song is the closest this record gets to a ballad, and even then it manages to evoke images of Uli Roth soaring under a warm spotlight.

There’s really not much to complain about here if you happen to consider yourself a fan of hard rockin’, throwback heavy metal. I mean, unless you’re in the mood to harp on the fact that the cover art doesn’t exactly provide a ton of detail on the actual protagonist at the heart of this venture. But then, maybe that feller crossing the mountains in the scene up there was also meant to depict drummer Avinash Mittur, who attacks the drum kit up and down the record like a four-armed mutant. Hey, wait… Maybe Avinash is actually Goro?? So many questions left dangling in the fiery winds. One thing for sure, though: These three individuals really enjoy emphasizing the POW in power trio, so be sure to earmark Hands of Goro if you appreciate the idea of having your melon punched by the loud, Loud, LOUDER.

LP version available to order here: