HOUSES OF HEAVEN Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Oakland, CA trio Houses Of Heaven draw on elements of industrial pop, post-punk, electro and experimental on their latest full-length Within/Without, their second LP for label Felte. Channelling the production prowess of Matia Simovich (INHALT) - and featuring top-of-their-game guest vocals from Douglas McCarthy (Nitzer Ebb) and Mariana SaldaNa (BOAN) - Within/Without marks a turn away from the dub-infused movements of their prior 2020 Silent Places, going full-on weighty and noir cyberpunk, but with an extra ear for texture that most other releases operating in said style cannot claim to match. Opener 'Strange Temptation' prefers its shutdown Reeses and crunching arp sequences, while mid-record peaktimer 'Deserve' proves itself unafraid of rapturous verbs and washes; the lust could go on, but all tracks here have a remarkable ability to both strike fear into the hearts of us puny humans and simultaneously make us prance.