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Amazon.co.uk Review
Cold House marks something of an epiphany for Hood. In the past, Leeds avant-rock duo Hood have often been a resolutely joyless proposition, turning out a handful of albums of melancholy soundscaping that captured all the soaking sadness of the English countryside, but always came across as more of a chore than a pleasure. Moving now from abstract electronica to melancholy folk to graceful, synth-laden post-rock, these 10 tracks bring Hood's disparate elements into sharp focus: "They Removed All Trace That Anything Had Ever Happened Here" begins as a foray into utterly sad folktronica, glum acoustic guitars weaving behind dazed, anaesthetised loops, but as the track unravels, Why? from US avant-rap crew Clouddead adds voice to the slowly building cacophony. Meanwhile, "The Winter Hits Hard" takes the jump into a disorientating world of crackly, glitch-addled electronica, distant, emotionless vocals eventually subsumed into a snowstorm of digital effects. Cold House is far from a comforting listen, but it's by some length Hood's most assured statement yet: a masterwork of digital darkness, foreboding and fascinating in equal measure. --Louis Pattison
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pioneer Soundtracks,
This review is from: Cold House (Audio CD)
Hopefully this will provoke a revival for original, intelligent music-making. I'm sure a shift from ephemeral, hyped-up, next-best-retro-rock-designer bands is imminent. Pray Jesus!A better album I have not heard in a good year ("Kid A"). A bit of a pastoral masterpiece, a la "Laughing Stock" and "Is This Desire?". Meloncholy yes, but beautiful and boundless. The electronic bounce of "You Show No Emotion At All", recalls "The Garden" by PJ Harvey and the wonderful "Euphoria" by Insides. Only once is old skool indie recalled, in "I Can't Find My Brittle Youth", the rest is a revelation to my sorely deprived post-rock ears. The opening "... Removed All Trace..." and closing "You're Worth The Whold World" are stunning semi-hip hop stews. There's mad electronica on "...Sell Out(s)", whilst "Branches Bare" and "Lines Low To The Frozen Ground" simply shiver from the speakers. Winter soundtracks.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Winter Hit Hard,
By Demob Happy "jamesewan" (London / Grenoble) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Cold House (Audio CD)
I got into Hood through their most recent record, Outside Closer, which I still consider to be the better of the two. This is their more celebrated record, although its follow-up has clearly the stronger selection of songs in my opinion. This is a bleak, uncompromising album. Hood have mastered the sound of wintery desolation like no-one else, and with song titles like 'Lines Low to Frozen Ground' and 'The Winter Hit Hard', it doesn't come as much as a surprise. Anticon rappers Why? and Doesone make discreet but valuable contributions, their trademark nasal mutterings providing brief relief to Hood's sometimes dirge-like Indie. In fact, the juxtaposition works so well you are left wanting more, but that is usually a good thing. Opener 'They Removed All Trace That Anything Had Ever Happened Here' is a perfect example of this - building steadily from inauspicious electronica into a tense, melancholic indie soundscape, a yabbbering looped rap from Doesone creeps in towards the end to augment the perfectly realised production. Similarly 'You Show No Emotion At All' and 'When Branches Bare' literally creak and crack and shiver with their wintery atmospherics, Doesone making a star turn at the end of the latter with the line: 'We spit in the pond to give the fish something to prey to'. A sublime moment. 'Enemy of Time' is a sobre ballard while 'The Winter Hit Hard' is cavernous dub with shards of icy tension crashing through the speakers - and is probably a bit like freezing to death. 'My Brittle Youth' is the closest thing on the album resembling a single, with some nice guitar and up-front-and-personal lyricism, and fades out to a monstrous industrial meltdown that threatens but never quite engulfs the listener. 'This Is What We Do To Sell Out(S)' begins with ear-piercing glitch in the manner of Autechre before the gentlest of voices and guitar breeze in like a lullabye. Things thaw out a little after this point, but its still a striking album, even if you are rarely in the mood to listen to it. If you like this, you may also like the funereal Anticon collaboration with The Notwist, 13 & God - now that is heavy-going.
4.0 out of 5 stars
'Throbbin' Hood' (!!),
By Paul Ess. (Holywell, N.Wales,UK.) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Cold House (Audio CD)
Not the fantastic 'Thunderbirds' villain, but a deceptively involving pop group; Hood are kinda like Pink Floyd circa 1967, when the zest for existence and a lust for experimentation hadn't dissolved into the lax tedium of cumbersome millstones like 'the Wall'.
By contrast - Hood are STILL interesting. 'Cold House' is an album by Hood and despite a somewhat doomy feel to the set, you can't help but feel they have essential humour to go with their not inconsiderable talent. Frolics to be had among the angst. 'Cold House' has the right mix of churning pop and staccato ballads. Some songs: 'the River Curls Around the Town' for example, are almost too experimental in a I'm-not-really-in-an-experimental-mood-today sense, but are not quite experimental enough a few days later. Titles reflect the vital nature of the songs. You've gotta be careful with things called: 'They Removed All Trace That Anything Had Ever Happened Here' and 'I Can't Find My Brittle Youth' - songs with titles like these DARE not be poor and thankfully they aren't. They confidently succeed. Hood have an intriguing knack of sounding like some-one else - only better; 'Trace' sounds like a vastly improved version of those rank woefuls Gallon Drunk, with a mournful violin nod to Microdisney's 'Pink Skinned Man'. When you close your eyes, sometimes music can be a real eye-opener.... Hood's influences are manifold. The only influences anybody needs in modern music is Cabaret Voltaire and Dollar - coincidentally two of Hood's influences. Some of Hood's songs like 'Branches Bare' are just plain scary; some of their lyrics are dryly obscure, waiting for pseudo-intellectuals to pick their way through them, but they all have that special-music-something; that which can move you away from the mediocrity and the middlin' and energetically renew your sense of wonder. When I was a wee bairn, there was a phrase abounding in critical circles: "bringing back something new". A phrase that could have been specifically coined for Hood.
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