The Handshake Murders

Usurper

[3/5] Somewhere between the release of Meshuggah’s Nothing in 2002 and 2005’s Catch Thirty-Three, it seems like 75 percent of the bands who were still working on their musical voice (i.e., ripping off the Dillinger Escape Plan before realizing they couldn’t) decided that one Meshuggah wasn’t enough for the world. Head over to Europe, and you won’t get three feet before tripping over a band aping the polyrhythmic Swedes. And if it weren’t for the sweat and dirt of an Arkansas summer caking the brows of the guys in the Handshake Murders, you might assume them to be part of this old world copycat movement. Sure, THM’s are technically inferior (because who’s technically superior to Meshuggah?), but at least they take a hearty stab at separating their jagged, coruscating, guitar pull-off-and-bend clamor from Meshuggah’s jagged, coruscating, pull-off-and-bend clamor by using Ameri-core elements such as hoarse, Coalesce-influenced bellowing and scads of triplet breakdowns. (GOODFELLOW) Kevin Stewart-Panko