In the lead-up to releasing their new album Dissonants, Hands Like Houses played some of Australia’s biggest arenas subbing in for The Ghost Inside on The Amity Affliction’s Big Ass Tour.
And it was probably a good warm-up for the Canberra fivesome, because their third studio LP is made of the stuff that fills stadiums.
Fans already floored by the disc’s colossal lead tracks Colourblind and New Romantics won’t be let down by the rest of the missiles in its armoury.
From lead single and disc opener I Am, HLH deploy all of their most formidable assets: jackhammer breakdowns, crushing riffs buoyed by intricate synths, monster choruses, huge melodies and the kind of earth-shuddering screams that will give you Jurassic Park flashbacks.
Think new Bring Me The Horizon, except with more girth.
Much like Oli Sykes, Hands Like Houses’ frontman Trenton Woodley has a knack for delivering powerful pop melodies with cement mixer grit. This dude is a legit vocal superman: his pipes are more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall octaves in a single bound.
And you won’t forget he’s Australian, either. Despite his band’s music arguably being far more suited to the international market than the current Aussie one (seriously, how many other homegrown heavy rock acts can you name that were formed post-2005?) Woodley still lets his straya’n accent slip through from time to time on tracks like Momentary, Stillwater and Grey Havens.
Fuckin’ aye.
In a record stuffed with titanic tunes, the 80’s guitar-hero leads and anthemic gang vocals of Bloodlines make it a major player, ditto for the pulsing heavy dancefloor vibes of Degrees Of Separation and the unbridled screams of Division Symbols‘ climactic bridge.
But by far the album’s biggest standouts are its two most recent singles. New Romantics and Colourblind are both triumphs of heavy songwriting, 220-second assaults of pulverising, industrial-laced rock fuelled by honest lyrics, unrelenting pop hooks and huge melodies that dart all over the musical spectrum.
With Dissonants, Hands Like Houses stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the world’s finest at the forefront of rock’s newest chapter: one that is melodic, danceable, heavy AF and packing blockbuster production.
And the best part?
They can back it up live.
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‘Dissonants’ is out February 26, grab a copy here.
Watch: Hands Like Houses – Colourblind
