Cody Kelly: Guitar
Zack Kelly: Drums
Tom Fihe: Bass Guitar
Jeff Kalal: Guitar
Mike Socrates: Guitar
In 2024, acclaimed instrumental post-rock band If These Trees Could Talk released a single, "Trail of Whispering Giants," the group's first new music in eight years. Fans were elated, and clamored for more. The wait is over with The Hidden Hand, a full album of nine stellar, provocative songs. As drummer and band-co-founder Zack Kelly explains, "the If These Trees Could Talk experience feels like a slow, wordless conversation between the inner and outer world. Best consumed like the score to a cinematic picture or a space for meditation, healing, and clarity."
Longtime fans and newcomers alike will thrill to "Blurry Creatures," which embodies the raw nature of the ITTCT via unrelenting riffs with epic highs and lows, ambient syncopated delays and a battle chant that stimulates the senses. "Sea of Glass" offers a smooth optimistic post-rock landscape guided uplifting clean guitars and heavy chorus hooks which pay off with a haunting and explosive resolution. The seventh cut on The Heavy Hand, "Metonoia," has 1980's vibes pulsing with progressive delayed guitars, pounding drums and a soaring guitar solo reminiscent of vintage David Gilmour.
"This release means a lot to me not only spiritually but emotionally," says Zack, who co-founded the band with drummer-brother Cody Kelly in 2005. "There were a lot of up-and-downs during the making of this album and the journey took longer than anticipated, but the end goal is to make music that holds an emotional imprint, and I hope we have succeeded."
The Akron, Ohio-based lineup have been praised by Metal Hammer for "uplifting post-rock that layers cascading guitars over tight drums with a deep emotional resonance," while the lineup's Metal Blade debut (and third LP overall), 2016's The Bones of a Dying World, was called "a fluid-flowing masterpiece that builds upon complex, progressive dreamscapes."
The band independently released a self-titled debut EP, and a debut full-length LP, Above the Earth, Below the Sky, in 2009. ITTCT self-released their second album, Red Forest, in March 2012, following it with a European tour in 2012. Signing to Metal Blade and releasing The Bones of a Dying World, the band's previous albums were re-issued in 2021 and 2022 by the label.
On The Hidden Hand, "most parts usually start with a loop pedal and delay, from there a natural bass line will reveal itself and we can build from there after lots of trial and error," explains Zack. "Drums patterns can also help play against the loop and create a movement or flow to help build the counts and changes."
The Hidden Hand offers the same range of dark and ambient landscapes as the previous albums but also brings a feeling of resolution. "As we all get older and our musical tastes evolve, it's more of a challenge to keep the sound of the band in a specific lane and not venture too far away from where we originally started."
If These Trees Could Talk focus on capturing sonic power, utilizing the three guitars to cover different areas of the spectrum. Zack explains: "It's almost the same way an orchestra would be set up with the bass guitar covering cello, the rhythm guitars holding down the woodwind section and the lead guitarist cover the strings section. No matter who comes up with a riff or where it starts, the end product must always have these three components present especially when transitioning from clean to heavy tones."
Speaking of musical tastes, there's a hint in the cover song on The Hidden Hand. "Aphex Twin was a big inspiration for all of us growing up in the late 90s, their sound was unheard of and broke boundaries not only with their music videos, but with their instrumental music," Zack says. "The song "Flim" translates seamlessly to our style of writing and the influence traces back to some of our original guitar compositions. It feels good to pay homage to one of the greats and say thank you for helping us think outside the box."
The band's latest instrumental odyssey was so named because of a "fascination with the unexplained and unknowable especially in the areas of influence, control and guidance," Zack explains. "Symbols and signs hidden in plain sight only available to those who are looking."
ITTCT hasn't toured widely, but in 2024, playing the PORTALS Festival in Hackney, UK proved, no pun intended, instrumental. "The amount of bands and general vibe of the experimental music community in England was overwhelming to say the least," the band says, with Zack concluding, "Seeing the love and appreciation from all the fans on our first visit was definitely not expected. It really was catalyst and launching point to really getting The Hidden Hand finished and released."
