The Handshake Affair is a German screamo band from the town of Dessau. When not screaming The Handshake Affair vocally sound quite similar to Rise Against, albeit with a distinct German accent clearly present. Musically the sound that The Handshake Affair produces is quite impressive, vocally however it is all a little too contrived for my liking. The guitars are promising, the drum beats are strong, but for me the vocals just let it all down.
Vocally I feel the music of The Handshake Affair is at best when singer/shouter Eric Cipowicz is screaming his lungs out. The screams are impressive, the sung vocals however are extremely whiny and really quite irritating. The problem is here that with the screams you must also accept the cleanly sung verses, something that I find extremely difficult to do. Were it not for the whining nature of the sung vocals then I feel that this would be quite an impressive EP, as it stands however the music is extremely difficult to listen to without wincing.
Were this band to remove the clean vocals and stick purely to screaming then the music would be a lot more impressive. Instrumentally the band is greatly talented, the shouts are fiery, and the sound that is produced by this band is at times excellent. A synth element is brought in sporadically to great effect, I just can’t take this band seriously however at the times when the vocals are not screamed or shouted. It’s as though front man Eric is trying to mimic Rise Against with his vocal display; it just doesn’t quite work out for him however I’m afraid to say. ‘Sins And Alibis’ is the best track from this release, it features far less sung vocals than all other tracks on this release and for that reason it is all the more entertaining to listen to.
The Handshake Affair has played on the Munich leg of the Taste of Chaos tour so the bands members are no strangers to a sell out crowd, the band is yet to develop to it’s full potential though I feel. If The Handshake Affair make a few alterations to the music as a band then I feel that the sound output will be a lot more effective than it is at current. The leaps between sung and screamed vocals are all too predictable for my liking, when listening you can more of less judge when the shifts in vocal style will occur and the music is therefore a little too predictable and bland. As it stands The Handshake Affair has a lot more to learn, give it a bit of time though and I feel that we may well see the best that this band has to offer.
Release Date: 28th April 2008
Rating:
UK based film graduate with a huge passion for music, sports and video games.
