{"id":18540,"date":"2014-09-22T11:00:33","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T11:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/album-review-hands-like-houses-unimagine-ep\/"},"modified":"2018-03-17T15:08:35","modified_gmt":"2018-03-17T15:08:35","slug":"album-review-hands-like-houses-unimagine-ep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/album-review-hands-like-houses-unimagine-ep\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Hands Like Houses &#8211; Unimagine EP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/tumblr_inline_nc99a05JDx1qheirv.png\" width=\"250px\" title=\"\"><\/strong><strong>Hands Like Houses<\/strong> are one of <strong>Rise Records<\/strong>&rsquo; most recent success stories, with second album <em>\u2018Unimagine\u2019<\/em> hitting the top 40 in the US charts and 6 on the US indie charts. And although the UK is a little behind the curve, this EP, which sees the band change up five of the songs off <em>\u2018Unimagine\u2019<\/em>, and the associated UK tour in October, gives them another chance to win more friends in ol\u2019 Blighty.<\/p>\n<p>However, while <strong>Hands Like Houses<\/strong> should be applauded for not taking the easy way out when it comes to reinterpreting their songs \u2013 there are no lazy remixes or gentle acoustic versions here \u2013<em>\u2018Reimagine\u2019<\/em> also suffers from the same problem as its parent album, being horribly sanitised and slickly overproduced. If I was synesthetic it would taste of liquid silver, all glistening and alluring yet ultimately unfulfilling. There\u2019s little edge or personality to <em>\u2018Reimagine\u2019<\/em>, and even though some of the songs benefit from the reworking, you\u2019re still left with an ultimately empty feeling.<!-- more --><\/p>\n<p>Opener <em>\u2018Recollect (Shapeshifters)\u2019<\/em> is now a funkified Incubus-style blast, rather than the more prosaic straight-up rock of the original, and for the most part is better for it, while both <em>\u2018Revive (Introduced Species)\u2019<\/em> and <em>\u2018Rediscover (No Parallels)\u2019<\/em> \u2013 the two best tracks on offer \u2013 are stripped back and percussion-heavy.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Finally, the five-track EP is rounded off with <em>\u2018Release (A Tale of Outer Suburbia)\u2019<\/em>, which is considerably more haunting than the bombastic original, and <em>\u2018Reflect (Developments)\u2019<\/em>, which sadly sounds like a ballad on a boyband record.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, what you\u2019re left with is something that sounds great but is bland and uninspiring; we\u2019re talking commoditised rock with mass market appeal. When I think of post-hardcore bands, I think of bands that would leave it all on stage (or in the studio); of bands like Thursday, or more latterly La Dispute, who brim with passion and intensity. With <strong>Hands Like Houses<\/strong> this crucial ingredient has been replaced with a glitzy veneer. And it\u2019s not for me.<\/p>\n<p>2\/5<\/p>\n<p><em>&lsquo;Reimagine&rsquo; <\/em>EP by <strong>Hands Like Houses<\/strong> is out now on <strong>Rise Records<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hands Like Houses<\/strong> links: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/handslikehouses\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a>|<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/handslikehouses\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Words by Robert Mair (<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/bobnightmair\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@BobNightMair<\/a>)\/p&gt; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hands Like Houses are one of Rise Records&rsquo; most recent success stories, with second album \u2018Unimagine\u2019 hitting the top 40 in the US charts and 6 on the US indie charts. And although the UK is a little behind the curve, this EP, which sees the band change up five of the songs off \u2018Unimagine\u2019, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,8181],"tags":[5879,565,8488,8489,18,15022],"class_list":["post-18540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews","category-post","tag-album-reviews","tag-hands-like-houses","tag-reimagine","tag-reimagine-ep","tag-rise-records","tag-rob-mair"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Album Review: Hands Like Houses - Unimagine EP - Already Heard Staging<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Hands Like Houses are one of Rise Records&rsquo; most recent success stories, with second album \u2018Unimagine\u2019 hitting the top 40 in the US charts and 6 on\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Album Review: Hands Like Houses - Unimagine EP - Already Heard Staging\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hands Like Houses are one of Rise Records&rsquo; 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