Album Review: Hearts & Hand Grenades – Turning To Ashes (Eclipse Records)

Hearts & Hand Grenades is an explosive American hard rock group from Buffalo, NY fronted by Stephanie Wlosinski on lead vocals and bass guitar. Turning To Ashes, is the group’s debut full-length release featuring eight original songs full of savage riffs and powerfully deep lyrics.

Turning To Ashes will be released worldwide on January 8th 2021 via Eclipse Records.

Catchy hard rock tunes and plenty of feel-good energy is what’s on offer with Hearts & Hand Grenades’ debut and they showcase it strongly on the opening title track. Nothing too complex or surprising here. Just a bouncy slice of excitable groove with a killer chorus dominated by the impressive vocals of Wlonsinski.

The heaviness is ramped up a bit with the meatier guitar riffs and fiery bursts of gnarly vocals that make up For the Weakened. A fist-pumping highlight. Before faster punky rhythm and metal influence steps up for another catchy effort in Daggers.

Hearts & Hand Grenades have all the making of a band that could easily gain the mainstream’s attention. They have here the sort of attention grabbing release that could propel them into the mainstream while still having enough meat to the bones to please starving head-bangers. A great example of this comes at the halfway point with the mellow and melodic vibes of I Hide that burst with powerful rock life every so often.

https://youtu.be/TXcNCRDWQAA

Talking of power though… Adrenaline is a club-floor filler in every way possible. It makes you want to shake your body and bang your head at the same time. Nothing Left sticks to the winning formula and before the album can slip into monotonous territory, we get the exceptionality cool The In Crowd. A track that has a playfulness to the verses before erupting into punk-infused excitableness in the chorus. The shifts back and forth are jarring but in a really interesting way. It legitimately keeps the listener on their toes.

Which does means we end as we begun with a kick-ass set of riffs, a ton of groove and memorable rock energy. My Sickness, not exactly the most exciting of finishes but a fine way for Hearts & Hand Grenades to wrap things up.

Hearts & Hand Grenades – Turning to Ashes Full Track Listing:

1. Turning To Ashes
2. For The Weakened
3. Daggers
4. I Hide
5. Adrenaline
6. Nothing Left
7. The In Crowd
8. My Sickness

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