When Hands Like Houses made their debut in 2012 with Ground Dweller on Rise Records, they immediately stood out. At the time, Rise’s roster of new signings was filled to the brim with dime-a-dozen metalcore bands that did little to distinguish their stereotypically angsty and melodramatic music from the then-dominant groups of the Warped Tour scene… or from each other. With their label dominated by so much sonic homogeny, it was downright refreshing to see Rise take a chance on an Australian sextet who flipped the script, crafting a progressive sound where sonic intricacy meshed with nuanced lyrical storytelling, a combination that could reach genuinely riveting heights.
