Bands I Hate: Half-Handed Cloud

Lets get something straight. If the phrase 'avant-Christian pop' scares you, run away. Personally, I have nothing wrong with pop music, and i have nothing wrong with Christians. I do, typically, have problems with Christian music, at least insomuch as it's unnessecary and disingenuous. Half-Handed Cloud (a.k.a. John Ringhofer), with his Omnichord of God, epitomizes both of these qualities. Though he's been riding along in both spirit and tour van with fellow prostheletizer Sufjan Stevens, the latter is able to get across a digestable liturgical idea (ok, ignore Seven Swans) into a musical message that's as subtle as the speeches of Abraham Lincoln. Half-Handed Cloud, however, is a sacrosanct brick of condescending religiosity. Their mutual label (Asthmatic Kitty) lauds HHC as a 'dazzlingly sweet phenomenon'; 'the celestial telephone is ringing for Half-handed Cloud with a message of love and hope on the other end.' Sorry for making you barf.

When I saw HHC opening for Sufjan at Cat's Cradle a few months ago, he filled our time-of-waiting-for-the-real-talent time by playing self-righteous songs about 'the unbelievers' and those 'without the all-consuming search for God.' Now he's got a new record, Halos & Lassos, replete with his ADD-laden takes on the nature of hipster piety. The musical style compliments the juvenile ostentation; synthesizers and vochorders compete with his kid-pitched voice. Most of the songs clock in at just over 1 minute, which gives me just enough time to get pissed off but not enough time to remember to curse. Check the sample lyric from "Feed Your Sheep a Burning Lamp":

Feed you goat to feed the fire
Goats are fuels for fires burning
Goats and lambs for either hand
Lambs on hand for righteous yearning
Lambs with hands receive the crown
Royal Crown
Ooooo OOooo

Again, sorry bout the barf. Christianity Today gives it 4 stars, which is sort of your first clue; P.O.D. and Creed regularly get 4 stars, and Scott Stapp probably writes guest articles. I wouldn't be so upset but for the fact that this stuff gets passed off as innovative. And I don't mind being condescended to by a religioso--i can't prove them wrong, and i often get out of the debate on sheer drunkeness--but when the particular religioso is wearing a pink head band and talks like Emo Philips, and is also telling me to stay away from my whiskey, well, i get violent.

And as some horrible pastiche of B&S-frontman Stuart Murdoch's own habitation, he's been living rent-free in a church in Berkeley in exchange for custodial work. I bet that cleaning church toilets makes you hate sinners.

I suppose part of the fault lies in the technology that engenders this sort of technopoptwee music, the miracle of home recording and live onstage trickery. If, say, a drummer and a guitar player had to contend at regular intervals with this Ringhofer sot, i imagine a flying drumstick or electric guitar might quickly silence the holy noise. But it's the modern age: with multitrack recording, on-stage loops, and sound effects galore, every solo artist is his own five-piece. Sometimes it works and you get an Andrew Bird, or Jens Lekman. Then sometimes you get this, the B-grade indie-rock version of Benny Hinn.