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In "Hand Me Down," Visqueen's Rachel Flotard sings a fun, familiar ode to a love that spans generations.
In "Hand Me Down," Visqueen's Rachel Flotard sings a fun, familiar ode to a love that spans generations.
November 6, 2009 - Seattle's Visqueen has long felt like a closely guarded regional secret, in part because singer Rachel Flotard spent the past few years caring for her terminally ill father. After his death, Flotard took time to regroup, do some overseas aid work, start her own record label and release a wonderfully ferocious new album, Message to Garcia.
Flotard's charismatic stage presence and fiery vocals have helped her pick up supporting roles with Neko Case and Jon Rauhouse, but she dominates the spotlight on Message to Garcia. The crunchy, urgent power-pop of "Hand Me Down" opens the album on a particularly auspicious note, as crunchy guitars and Flotard's incomparable voice simultaneously destroy and mesmerize. As its title suggests, "Hand Me Down" — like Message to Garcia and the enormously promising career that spawned it — is rooted in a singular bond that spans generations. As long as it keeps getting passed on in rock songs this fun and familiar, that bond will never fade.
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