Over the past decade, he has been a contributor for multiple online and print publications and was most recently an editor at PopMatters. Kiel Hauck is the editor in chief at It’s All Dead. Hands Like Houses are no longer a band on the verge – they’re leading the way. Dissonants has elevated the band above the self-absorbed mire below, both in purpose and in musical ability.
However, never has the band’s message been so purposefully and artfully delivered as it is here. These ideas are not unique to Dissonants, but are littered throughout the Hands Like Houses discography. On “Stillwater”, Woodley warns against the reckless building of walls and the constant threat that time poses to our respective empires, singing, “How did we get so old and never notice? / How did we gain the world and lose the moment? / Rise and fall / The tide surrounds us and drowns us all”. Something that sets the band apart from many in their scene is their focus on community and the idea that our journeys are not independent of one another, but are instead a collective one.Īs on previous records, Woodley regularly exchanges pronouns like “I” and “me” with “we” and “us.” On “Colourblind”, he insists that the divisive differences that set us against one another are not insurmountable, claiming, “We are the sickness and the symptom and the cure”. While Hands Like Houses have trimmed the unnecessary fat, leaving behind the core elements of a solid rock album, they haven’t lost their identity. Even tracks like “Division Symbols” and “Momentary”, which sound slightly like Unimagine holdovers, don’t sound overly out of place within the record. “Motion Sickness” slows things down with a pleasant change of pace and beautiful guitar tones, while “Degrees of Separation” manages to be one of the fastest paced songs on the record thanks to its danceable beat. There are very few bands in the current Warped Tour scene possessing the skillset to write such a uniquely accessible song, one that bends a band away from categorization while offering a wide appeal. It’s a patient track with a swirling chorus that sheds away labels like “post-hardcore” and elevates the band above their peers. On “Stillwater”, one of the album’s standouts, Matt Parkitny’s drums liven a gorgeous alt-rock adventure. While Dissonants is truly assertive in its will to rock, Hands Like Houses still find plenty of space to shift gears. “New Romantics” is anchored by an absolutely wicked bassline from Joel Tyrell, providing a powerful underbelly to one of the best songs the band has written. “Glasshouse” rips through the speakers with flashy guitar work and brooding vocals from Woodley that explode as the chorus begins, “I was safe, I was brave / Until the sky collapsed on me”. You really get a feel for the band’s confidence on tracks like “New Romantics” and “Glasshouse” – two songs that showcase each member’s strengths. Woodley occasionally reaches into his back pocket for a timely scream, but never forces the issue. On “Perspectives” and “Colourblind”, programming elements fit neatly within the song’s structure, adding depth and texture, while clunky breakdowns are replaced with crisp guitar riffs. This time around, Wisner appears to have unleashed Hands Like Houses in all of the right ways, but this isn’t the untamed exuberance of the band’s debut – Dissonants is full of focused aggression. Dissonants realizes the full potential of a band on the cusp, serving as the most cohesive and focused album of the band’s career and an early front runner for the best rock record of the year. Nearly a year in the making, there’s no denying the importance of this third release from the band – and the gravity of the moment seems not to be lost. While acclaimed producer James Paul Wisner was brought in to mold the band’s 2013 follow-up, Unimagine, that release felt overly restrained, sapping much of the energy that made Hands Like Houses so exciting in the first place. The band’s exciting debut album, Ground Dweller, was full of vigor but lacking in direction, marked by oddly placed metalcore breakdowns and untamed programming elements.
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