CURSE THESE METAL HANDS
Two of the UK’s best young bands have united. And you’re gonna love the results
“WITH MOST BANDS, the easiest part is finding people and getting ready for a gig; the hardest part is coming up with a name that isn’t shit.”
Most metalheads that know of Brady Deeprose and Nick Watmough will do so because of their respective work in Conjurer and Pijn: two of the UK’s most acclaimed young, heavy bands. But today they sit together, jovially discussing the genesis of their new crossover project, Curse These Metal Hands.
“We thought on the name for ages Brady continues. “We’re all big Peep Show fans; we had a conversation about that programme’s silly band names and agreed that ‘Curse These Metal Hands’ is the best.”
Comprised of three members of Pijn and two from Conjurer, the band combine the patient post-metal of the former with the riff-happy drive of the latter. They came together as a one-off to decimate 2018’s Arctangent with a half-hour of bull-headed guitarwork.
“They planned to have more collaborative sets,” Nick recalls, before laughing: “That didn’t happen because nobody would collaborate – except for Conjurer.”
“It came together much better than we expected Brady adds. “By Arctangent, we felt like we were 70% there. We said, ‘If we had another six months to work on this, we can really make something!’ It seemed like a no-brainer.”
The union was so promising that the quintet felt it’d be wasteful to disband after just one show. So, they entered the studio, creating their selftitled album. Curse These Metal Hands is a half-hour balancing act, bridging trudging riffs with optimistic lyricism to make something outside of both troupes’ comfort zones.
“We asked, ‘What would we like to do, but can’t in our own bands?’” says Brady. Nick adds: “We wanted to do something that doesn’t sound like Pijn or Conjurer. If we just did blastbeats and growls with ambient bits, it would have been boring.”
They may hide behind a goofy moniker, but Curse These Metal Hands have thus far been responsible for some of the most empowering (and surprising) grooves of 2019.
Curse These METAL hands is out August 16 viA Holy ROAR