Hankshaw

I have a particular bent for male vocalists with high voices – particularly the whole androgyny/feminine-voice thing.

The heavy metal singers are easy: John Arch and Ray Alder (Fates Warning), Geoff Tate (Queensryche), Michael Sweet (Stryper), Alan Tecchio (Watchtower, Hades)…the list goes on. Classic-era metal had tons of vocalists with high-pitched wails.

Then, of course, you get into stuff like Antony and The Johnsons, Craig Wedren’s early work w/ Shudder To Think, Richie Birkenhead (Into Another)…and – perhaps the most prominent recent example – Claudio Sanchez of Coheed and Cambria.

Not too long ago, I was revisiting an old mid ’90s Initial Records catalog of indie/emo/hardcore releases and came across a listing for this band called Hankshaw. The capsule description caught my attention right away: they were another one of those “is that a chick singing?” bands, so I ordered their ‘Nothing Personal’ CD and googled some links for their 7″ and EPs.

Hankshaw’s sound is not much different from every other mid-’90s post Sunny Day Real Estate band – if you like that stuff, you’ll find more of the same here.

What sets them apart is the angelic, silken thread of melody that Harold Hasselback coaxes from his mic. Most of the photos I’ve seen online (check out their myspace) and in the CD booklet depict the band in various degrees of rocking out – so I’m going to guess that they had a very affecting live show.

After their “emo” era, the band seemed to evolve and mature into a sort of Jamiroquoai-style disco-pop-electronic project – which I like even more, since the music frames the fey tendencies of Hasselback’s delivery in a manner both impeccable and artful. I recommend that you buy it (like I did) either at CDBaby or at Amazon.

There’s additional blog fandom with audio links (and some comments by Harold himself!) to be found at ‘The South Florida Music Scene Past and Present’ and ‘Zen and The Art of Face Punching’. I also liked what ‘Ink19‘ had to say, plus don’t miss the ever informative ‘Taringa!‘