Handheld

Handheld have been around for a pretty long time and haven’t given up on playing the music they love, even though its heyday has long since passed. Their music is short, to-the-point, poppy skate punk (think Belvedere without the metal influence), and they do it well. "Unscathed” is a prime example of the genre: back-up "whoas” are used unsparingly, the drums drive the song forward in an almost -bouncy way and the vocals are just scratchy enough to give the song a certain edge. It’s a testament to the band’s talent that even the mandatory acoustic number and the pseudo-political-heavy-angry-punk-throwback songs don’t sound contrived. This whole record reminds of the mid-’90s Epitaph stable of bands, and while the style Handheld play hasn’t evolved much beyond that, it has been refined to the purest form of the genre.