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If you’re a fan of Scotland’s Glasvegas (as you should be), I urge you to march over to the MySpace page of New Zealand band Cut Off Your Hands right this very minute and listen to Happy As Can Be (the second track in the player) as you read this blog entry.

Happy As Can Be would pair so nicely next to a Glasvegas song on a mixtape for a special girl - it’s a beautiful, echoey anthem that sounds sweetly hopeful. But it’s not even representative of the band’s music, because all of their songs sound remarkably different - they’re hard to pigeonhole.

Cut Off Your Hands are four cute guys from Auckland, New Zealand who used to be called Shaky Hands but had to upgrade their name after they discovered it was already taken by another band. They pulled together a pair of EPs before putting the master touches on their debut album, You & I.

You & I has been out in NZ for a few months, but it’s finally making its way to North America this coming January 20, which is shaping up to be a massive day for highly-anticipated new albums in indie circles (Animal Collective, Andrew Bird, White Lies, etc.). I’ve heard all of You & I and it’s fantastically diverse - a wonderful way to start off 2009, and it hopefully won’t get lost in the shuffle of albums released in the next twelve months. It’s that great! I highly recommend checking out Happy As Can Be, Oh Girl and Expectations on their MySpace page for a taste of what’s to come from this fine group of youngsters from NZ.

And stay tuned for some Canadian tour dates - they’re making their way over to the U.S. at the end of February so you know Canada can’t be far behind!

Links:
MySpace: Cut Off Your Hands

Posted on Friday, January 2nd, 2009 at 1:27 pm by Kat and is filed under Music & Videos.

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