Hands Like Houses
Atmospherics
Civilians
As a concept it’s actually surprising it’s not been done this way before, using weather to segment an album into different moods. Here we get Tropo, Strato, Meso and Thermo combing into four distinct themes with Hands Like Houses full writing sound pulling them together into a perfect album arc. The album marks a rebirth of the band and a new singer Josh Raven, who’s emotionally charged performance throughout is mesmerising. If you want to highlight just why modern music is so good right now, how it is progressing, you’d be hard pressed to find a better example than ‘Atmospherics’. It has pretty much every box well and truly ticked. The writing is inventive, the instruments compliment each other without any imbalance, and the production is slick but natural. It’s an easy record to listen to but retains a few twists along the way making it far from predictable. This is music that sounds like it belongs in a massive stadium with a huge production. If they keep this up that’s exactly where Hands Like Houses will find themselves.
Review by Gary Trueman