Houses

One Liner: Depressingly rote chillwave and sad piano balladry.

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, going with mediocre electro chill pop?
Home: L.A.

Poster Position: 14

Both Weekends.

Thoughts: Talk about a band that needs to add some extra weird vowels in their name to stand out - searching for this band gets you a lot of information about "house bands."  Which is not helpful.  Nothing on Wikipedia, but one member of the group has a Wikipedia page - Dexter Tortoriello - who "rose to prominence as part of the group Houses," which must mean that there is a different meaning to the word "prominence" than I am used to.  His Spotify bio discusses a lot of other actions that would have actually shown prominence, like high-profile remixes for Major Lazer, Kings of Leon, and Odesza, and writing/producing credits for Lil Yachty and Kali Uchis.  But they chose to say his rise came from this unknown chillwave band?  OK.

Also interesting, only two albums - 2010's All Night and 2013's A Quiet Darkness - so I guess you'd expect that new music is on the way?  Otherwise, why are they here?  6 year old music we just need to hear immediately?  A 2018 single called "Fast Talk" is their currently most popular track with 3.6 million streams.

Kind of a Chris Martin/Coldplay vibe from the vocals, with a Beck-ish (old Beck) basic beat.  Not nearly so bad as what is about to come.

Their most recent album has been a hard listen - it isn't terrible, but it just feels like a slog of gently pretty stuff I don't want to hear again.  Lots of sad-sounding piano riffs, harmonies by people who sound tired, and a depressed drummer who is only allowed to do one kick drum hit every once in a while.  I do not like it.  Top track is "Big Light," with 6.5 million streams.

Would be perfect for a sequence in Gray's Anatomy (which has probably been off the air for a decade) where the pretty nurse lady just killed someone because she was humping the hunky doctor in the mop closet and she's riding on the ferry and standing by the railing holding in the tears.  The music is a cheap Postal Service knockoff.

The earlier album is a little bit better, but I mean like an increase of better-ness the thickness of a translucent almond sliver stuck to the bottom of your salad bowl.  Instead of the depressing piano stuff, this album is more of the chill-wave stuff they play on 101X on Sunday mornings.  Abercrombie & Fitch music.  Here is "Soak It Up," their top streamer overall at 11.2 million.

This is not good music.  I can't imagine sitting through a whole show of this at the festival - if they don't have an 11 am Sunday slot I'd be shocked.