The Velvet Hands “Over It Now”

Rising London-via-Cornwall four-piece THE VELVET HANDS have dropped their last track of the year, “Over It Now”.

The track arrives as a tantalizing sneak-peek of the new album ‘Sucker Punch’, which lands 3 February 2023, with a special vinyl edition planned for release on Blood Records.

Blending hedonistic hooks reminiscent of The Strokes with a slacker kind of storytelling plucked straight from Pavement’s playbook, the band’s latest outing is an anti-capitalist anthem spun with an easy-going, lackadaisical charm.

As The Velvet Hands explain:

“One of the more laidback songs on the album, this came from the four of us just playing around in rehearsal. Lyrically the song focuses on ‘the grind’ culture, which personally we have always found to be exploitative and somewhat ridiculous. The main message is that not everything in life is about money, and you can do things at your own pace. In a nutshell: stick to your guns.”

The band’s final release of 2022, “Over It Now” comes ahead of their second studio album ‘Sucker Punch’, which will be streaming from 3 February 2023. Delivering coming-of-age tales with slacker-rock sensibilities, the new record combines the punchy guitar licks of The Strokes or Parquet Courts with rousing punk choruses that recall The Clash or The Vaccines. 

Written by Toby Mitchell and Dan Able, the album was recorded by John Logan at The Cube Studios in Cornwall, and was produced and mixed by John Logan and JamX Jules at Par Studios. Featuring earlier singles including the new-wave tinged “Telephone Love”, rousing live-ready anthem “I Wanna Be There” and the pure escapism of “Holiday In My Head” — a blistering track that grapples with “the doldrums of being skint” — the record also includes an array of previously unheard material.

From “Meet Me In The City”, one of the album’s oldest tracks that’s “made to be played in the sunshine with your mates” to anti-apathy anthem “Emotion” and “Devils Tail”, “an ode to letting yourself loose”, the album expertly blends jagged guitar-rock with engaging anecdotal songs about relationships, revelry and finding optimism in dark times.

The Velvet Hands are Toby Mitchell, Dan Able, Louis Mitchell and Sam Hilder. After forming amidst Cornwall’s blistering garage-rock scene, the four-piece relocated to London and have been making a name for themselves on the capital’s underground guitar circuit ever since.

Praised as being “full of bolshy spirit” by NME, the band’s self-recorded debut album was Huw Stephens’ Album Of The Week on Radio 1. Their recent releases have also caused a stir with range of tastemaker blogs including Fred Perry Subculture, Gigslutz and God Is In The TV, with the latter praising them as “brash garage punk rabble-rousers somewhere between the attitude of early Cribs or Libertines with the death and glory of The Clash.” Recent single “I Wanna Be There” was also awarded Track of the Week by The Rodeo Magazine, who said: “we wanna be wherever The Velvet Hands are because this new song is IT.” 

Gaining airplay on Radio X, BBC 6 Music and BBC Introducing amongst others, the band have also supported the likes of Fontaines D.C., VANT, Wallows, Frank Turner and Paul Weller, opened for Liam Gallagher at The Eden Project and headlined stages at Isle of Wight and Y Not? Festivals.

Fresh off the back of a triumphant festival run this summer, including a homecoming show at Cornwall’s Boardmasters, The Velvet Hands also put in an impressive performance at the Pilton Party Auditions Final, where Michael Eavis hand-picked them to support at this year’s installment of the infamous Pilton Party. 

Fresh off the back of a run of UK live dates this November, the band will be hitting the road again early next year to celebrate ‘Sucker Punch’. As well as an album release show at the band’s local venue Old Bakery Studios in Truro as part of Independent Venue Week, the band will also be embarking on a full UK tour. Including a show at The Junction in Plymouth and their biggest headline date so far  at London’s The Lexington, stay tuned for further details soon.

-Official bio