Cut Off Your Hands @ Johnny Brenda's

Cut Off Your Hands
@ Johnny Brenda’s
Philadelphia, PA
June 3, 2009

New Zealand’s Cut Off Your Hands seem to have channeled lonely nights of listening to The Smiths and The Cure (on their respective bedroom floors) into spastically infectious power pop that is both inexpressibly catchy and chic. Unfortunately, their most recent Philadelphia performance only drew about a dozen and that dozen was likely drawn more by the band’s likeness to Weezer or The Killers than Joy Division or Marvelous 3; the performance resembled Suede playing a frat party long after the kegs had run out. Frontman Nick Johnston violently convulsed across the stage through a hail of the band’s anthemic pop that ranges from the stylishly cheeky (“Oh Girl”) to the playfully riotous [“Lets Get Out Of Here” (sic)] as the sparse audience danced with reckless abandon, imagining that they looked a tenth as cool as the band did. – Izzy Cihak