The Now – Too Hot To Handle
Contemporary and vibrant Alt/ Indie rock band The Now, hailing from South Wales and featuring Shane Callaghan (lead vocals/guitar), Callum Bromage (guitar/vocals), Jay Evans (bass/vocals) and Will Scott (drums), garnered attention with their debut EP in 2022 followed by a quartet of impacting singles released between early 2023 and 2024.
All four of those singles feature on the band’s eleven track debut album Too Hot To Handle (produced by Grammy Award winning engineer Oli Jacobs), which opens with the hard-hitting title track.
As dark and brooding as it is high-intensity through a clever use of dynamics, changing tempos and shifting rhythms, 'Too Hot To Handle' is lyrically themed around the subject of mental health, making Shane Callaghan’s vocal deliveries as impacting as the music ("I’ve got a problem in my head, as you watch me burn instead").
Following number 'Devil Inside Me' keeps up the intensity with a relentless drive and thick riffage (a song peak era The Cult would have been happy to call their own) before the alt-rock beat and swirl of 'Special Kind of Stupid' introduces itself as one of the most interesting songs on the album, not least because it leaves the listener free to choose who they want to give the stupid t-shirt to (many of the songs' lyrics allow the listener to decide on, or conclude, their meaning).
The sonic breadth and musical diversity of both band and album is underlined and showcased on the next two numbers, 'Truth Always Comes Out In The End' and 'Live & Die.'
The short, punchy, synth and guitar driven former, which features a wicked little solo from Callum Bromage, is one song where the lyric is clear and obvious, aimed four-square at the political elite and the current government’s failings (especially during the pandemic and lockdowns).
By contrast 'Live & Die' is a lovely, atmospheric keys & synth led alt-pop ballad that carries as much finite poignancy as each listener wishes to take from the song ("cause I know, that you know, that we both live and die, you can follow me to sleep").
The heavy dark-pop of 'Get Out' is as lyrically angry (casting aside those you would be better off not knowing) as it is short, clocking in at only two minutes (this is a band who like to keep their songs concise and to the point; only two songs touch the four minute mark, with four under three minutes).
Also keeping it short, sharp and sub-three minutes are 'His Last Dimension,' which sits somewhere between the Foo Fighters and a manic Stereophonics (Shane Callaghan sounds like a vocally hyped Kelly Jones in places) and the album’s most sonically intense moment, rock-metal riffer 'Wind Up.'
The contemporary riff and roll of 'Girl You Got Me' is another that shows the band have a great sense of dynamics (making a relatively simple alt-boogie more faceted and interesting) while 'Friendly Fire,' with its "wooh-ooh" interjections and groove-rhythm (and another tasty solo from Callum Bromage), is perhaps the most rock-accessible number of the album.
The initial piano led stanzas of 'Time Is Over' allows a more vocally isolated Shane Callaghan to open up (his vibrato in full flow on the note holds at the end of each line) before the song kicks up a couple of gears to run to an up-tempo, full-on rock conclusion.
It's a fitting end to an album by a fresh sounding, musically invigorating band who are musically, lyrically, and wholly, in The Now.
Ross Muir
FabricationsHQ
All four of those singles feature on the band’s eleven track debut album Too Hot To Handle (produced by Grammy Award winning engineer Oli Jacobs), which opens with the hard-hitting title track.
As dark and brooding as it is high-intensity through a clever use of dynamics, changing tempos and shifting rhythms, 'Too Hot To Handle' is lyrically themed around the subject of mental health, making Shane Callaghan’s vocal deliveries as impacting as the music ("I’ve got a problem in my head, as you watch me burn instead").
Following number 'Devil Inside Me' keeps up the intensity with a relentless drive and thick riffage (a song peak era The Cult would have been happy to call their own) before the alt-rock beat and swirl of 'Special Kind of Stupid' introduces itself as one of the most interesting songs on the album, not least because it leaves the listener free to choose who they want to give the stupid t-shirt to (many of the songs' lyrics allow the listener to decide on, or conclude, their meaning).
The sonic breadth and musical diversity of both band and album is underlined and showcased on the next two numbers, 'Truth Always Comes Out In The End' and 'Live & Die.'
The short, punchy, synth and guitar driven former, which features a wicked little solo from Callum Bromage, is one song where the lyric is clear and obvious, aimed four-square at the political elite and the current government’s failings (especially during the pandemic and lockdowns).
By contrast 'Live & Die' is a lovely, atmospheric keys & synth led alt-pop ballad that carries as much finite poignancy as each listener wishes to take from the song ("cause I know, that you know, that we both live and die, you can follow me to sleep").
The heavy dark-pop of 'Get Out' is as lyrically angry (casting aside those you would be better off not knowing) as it is short, clocking in at only two minutes (this is a band who like to keep their songs concise and to the point; only two songs touch the four minute mark, with four under three minutes).
Also keeping it short, sharp and sub-three minutes are 'His Last Dimension,' which sits somewhere between the Foo Fighters and a manic Stereophonics (Shane Callaghan sounds like a vocally hyped Kelly Jones in places) and the album’s most sonically intense moment, rock-metal riffer 'Wind Up.'
The contemporary riff and roll of 'Girl You Got Me' is another that shows the band have a great sense of dynamics (making a relatively simple alt-boogie more faceted and interesting) while 'Friendly Fire,' with its "wooh-ooh" interjections and groove-rhythm (and another tasty solo from Callum Bromage), is perhaps the most rock-accessible number of the album.
The initial piano led stanzas of 'Time Is Over' allows a more vocally isolated Shane Callaghan to open up (his vibrato in full flow on the note holds at the end of each line) before the song kicks up a couple of gears to run to an up-tempo, full-on rock conclusion.
It's a fitting end to an album by a fresh sounding, musically invigorating band who are musically, lyrically, and wholly, in The Now.
Ross Muir
FabricationsHQ