EP Review: Lótus by Hands Like Houses
Hands Like Houses, “Lótus” EP Cover Artwork.
Canberra based Post-Hardcore band, Hands Like Houses, a name that is bound to have gone triple platinum on teenagers Walkman’s in the early 2010s, are back with their newest release, “Lótus,” a 6-track EP following on from their 2025 full length release, “ATMOSPHERICS (DELUXE).”
First thing’s first, despite their origin within Post-Hardcore, this release is far from where they started, and whether that’s a positive thing or not is subjective.
The opening and title track Lótus, is a soft, elegant, welcome to the EP. It strips back to allow Josh Raven [Vocals], to portray melancholy with such integrity and rawness. His harmonies work wonderfully together, adding a touch of grit to amplify emotion. Erupting into powerful, melodic guitars add a sense of desperation, and they’re perfectly placed in order to take the title track from being delicate and sombre, to pleading and determined. Lótus is short, and it could’ve delivered much more emphasis had it been longer, to give room to allow the instrumentation and vocals to really make a mark. You only get a flicker of overwhelming weight crashing down on your ears before it’s ripped away, preventing any lasting influence being made on the listener's own emotions. A missed opportunity to be a truly incredible track.
Now, if you’re going to take inspiration from a hugely successful band, you either need to do it just as good as them or push the boat out and do it better. Unfortunately, Love & Affection never left the shoreline. To follow the sound of Melbourne based modern metalcore outfit, Thornhill, is a risky move, especially when they are known for their innovative and incredibly unique sound. The only guarantee that results from this creative decision is that the track will be listenable, but if it lacks the individuality and excitement of your own stamp, then all it becomes is a “can I copy your homework?” except you don’t change it, not even slightly.
Where other tracks have missed the mark, Warning Signs smashed it into a million pieces, with energy levels through the roof reaching a height that should’ve been injected in the rest of the record. The other tracks sit on the sidelines watching in the distance, wishing they were the penultimate. You get a real sense of vocal ability, with jagged harshes layered under vigorous cleans, a blend so well executed it’s faultless. Warning Signs is a prominent showcase of the bands’ ability to actually make music that is going to get involuntarily stuck in your head, but it’s a shame it’s one of a kind.
Closing tracks can be an opportunity for bands to put their entire soul into a track to ensure that it’s a lasting memory. You either need to have a perfect opener or a monumental closer. So, for Hands Like Houses to put a cover as their closing track is going to become one of Earth's many unanswerable questions. It’s an astoundingly beautiful rendition of the well-known ballad, Wicked Game, by Chris Isaak, but to put this on an EP as the closer acts as nothing more than a benched player who never gets subbed in during a football game because its only role is to get the numbers up. For a band who have been around as long as this one has - granted with a line-up change in recent years - you’d expect them to take their craft a bit more seriously, rather than shrugging their shoulders and playing pin the tail on the closing track.
Every track bar the title track has been released over the last year, and that’s something that bands seem to be doing a lot of recently, releasing the bulk of their upcoming records leaving little to no room for anticipation. Hands Like Houses removed the potential for garnering hype pre-release, and completely eradicated any possibility of the record being memorable once it’s out by releasing 5/6 tracks of this EP since 2025. Is this pure laziness or an effortless attempt to get something out just because they can?
Give credit where credit is due, the choruses throughout this EP are undeniably catchy, but they become obsolete when the rest of the EP doesn’t have the substance to give it the replayability factor. As soon as that last track comes to a halt, it wouldn’t be surprising if this record was never intentionally played back. You may keep it in your rotation and defer skipping the tracks when they come on, but to seek them out because you desperately want to hear them again has lower odds than pigs flying.
“Lótus” is a very safe release and it’ll fit well into your playlists if you want some easy listening, but that’s as far as the praise goes. Hands Like Houses have shown that they can still produce something with a dash of energy, even as such a long-standing band, but it doesn’t stand out in this current age of modern metalcore.
FFO: Holding Absence, Dream on Dreamer
SCORE: 3/10
“Lótus” is out on Friday 22nd May 2026 on all streaming platforms via Civillians.
