New Zealand outfit Cut Off Your Hands was one of those bands that briefly held my attention in the summer 0f 2009, the same summer I discovered Cut Copy and promptly forgot about them. Debut album You & I was some great indie pop, but it never really dug into me all that much (although opener “Happy As Can Be” always makes me smile). New album Hollow, however, definitely does. Darker than its predecessor but still maintaining the wonderful talent with melody and pop hooks that their debut showed, it’s everything a sophomore effort should be: better and promising bigger things for a band I had previously dismissed. Get it now if you like opener “You Should Do Better.”

Cut Off Your Hands – “You Should Do Better”