Some songs speak to you, and then some songs sit beside you with hands folded and eyes soft, waiting for you to feel ready. Hand Gestures’ recent release, “Justin’s Funeral,” is that type of song. Released on October 24, it’s the kind of track that doesn’t demand attention; instead, it’s like a memory you didn’t realize you’d been carrying. And here’s a little sneak peek into Hand Gestures. Born from the solo songwriting explorations of Brian Russ, whose name rings across projects like Backwords, Spirit Plate, and The Love Supreme, the band evolved from one musician’s quiet impulse into a full-hearted collective. And since this is their first appearance here, allow me to welcome Hand Gestures to Songweb.
The lineup is a group of familiar talents: Sal Garro (Pow Wow!), Bryan Bruchman (Mount Sharp), Courtney Smotkin, and Ryan Belski—artists whose roots intertwine naturally with the borough’s long tradition of emotionally honest, genre-flexing indie music. Together, they’re the kind of group you’d overhear at a dimly lit basement show and know you’ve stumbled upon something special right away.
“Justin’s Funeral” arrives with the softness of a story told in hindsight. The lyrics read like a journal entry, and what makes the song striking is its intimacy: it doesn’t dramatize loss. It remembers it. It breathes it. And that’s far more affecting. The image of “ten guys on one casket” and the bittersweet joke—Justin gets to crowd surf for one more night—is delivered with such quiet restraint that it hits even harder. This isn’t grief sharpened; it’s grief shrugged, shared, and lived with.
Brian Russ sings with a kind of clear-eyed calm that carries the whole track. His voice isn’t showy, and that’s precisely why it works, almost like he’s telling us about a day that changed him without meaning to. There’s a warmth to his delivery, an understated ache that sits below the words. The band’s performance mirrors this sense of quiet storytelling. No one leaps out ahead; instead, the instruments feel like friends keeping each other steady. The subtlety of the playing enhances the emotional weight—this is a song that trusts its own softness.
Lyrically, “Justin’s Funeral” is a coming-of-age story. Not the glossy version but the real one. The one marked by awkward car rides, unexpected grief, hand-me-down instruments, and the strange, small choices that later define you. The band captures that liminal sweetness and sadness exquisitely. The song isn’t about a funeral so much as the way certain days leave fingerprints on the rest of your life. It’s about the moment youth meets mortality and doesn’t quite know what to say, so it turns the dial on the radio and keeps going. And the verse about buying a dusty, forgotten attic guitar for five bucks? You can hear that moment in the production. The track carries the same spirit as that attic relic: humble, found, cherished, and imperfect in the right ways.
The production is natural but intentional, guided with a steady hand. You can hear Russ’s sensibility in the way the song leaves space for reflection. The mix is clean but not overly polished. Instrumentation leans into gentle guitar textures, grounded percussion, and warm, unobtrusive layers that build the sense of movement without overwhelming it. The instrumental breaks are thoughtful little opportunities for the listener to look around inside the memory being painted. They function almost like breaths held between sentences.
Hand Gestures may be a new band with a debut album freshly released, but “Justin’s Funeral” shows they already understand how to make music that feels deeply human. Poised, poetic, and profoundly gentle, this track introduces a band worth paying close attention to—one backseat memory, attic guitar, and quiet revelation at a time.
Listen to “Hand Gestures” on Spotify
Follow Hand Gestures here for more information
