Audio By Carbonatix
Keep Westword Free
We’re $1,500 away from our spring campaign goal!
We’re aiming to raise $20,000. Your support ensures Westword can continue watching out for you and our community. No paywall. Always accessible. Daily online and weekly in print.
While Portland, Maine’s Cruel Hand has been identified with that strangely durable neo-hardcore style of the last decade, the band’s sound stretches a little further, encapsulating the diverse energy and heaviness of Metallica and Bouncing Souls. Vocalist Chris Linkovich leads Cruel Hand with a Black Flag-era Henry Rollins’ authority, projecting his scream-talk with an exercised control over jutting guitars and plenty of tempo-fluctuating breakdowns.
The five-year-old East Coast band has produced two EPs and three full-lengths, the latest being 2010’s Lock & Key, a record that wears melody proudly on its sleeve as much as rhythmic brutality. Both catchy and intense, Cruel Hand’s ability to channel its array of influences into a loosely identifiable hardcore whole may be the key to their own longevity. This show is eighteen and up, and tickets are $10. Doors open at 7 p.m., show begins at 8 p.m.
