Hands Like Glass – With Unveiled Faces

I know it’s bad form to make broad and sweeping statements, but I feel strongly enough about this one to say it anyway: guttural hardcore and dance pumping synth should stay far, far away from one another.  Even with the intent of juxtaposing opposing styles for the sake of contrast, the result is lost on me.  I recently had the displeasure of reviewing one that even threw a vocoder into the mix (Abandon All Ships).  What a disaster.  With that briefing, it should come as little surprise that I simply couldn’t stand stomaching Los Angeles trance screamers Hands Like Glass.

For their debut EP, With Unveiled Faces, the sizeable quintet does little more than set out to sound like a regrettable crossover of glossy alternative acts like Saosin meets the toothless bark of forgettable hardcore as per Awaken Demons or It Dies Today.  Vocalist Justin Kyle’s clean semi-whine pierces any concentration to the point of nausea, exhausting and overusing any sense of ability through unmanageable repetition.  Then Kyle turns to the hardcore styling of deep, gargled, guttural rage, belted alongside the intermittent thumping of stock power drumming and breakdowns so generic I’m at a loss for how to describe them.  The inclusion of synth overlays was likely employed to give a sense of urgency and bring a crowd to its feet – for me, it simply exhausts my concentration and patience.

In terms of memorability, despite some clear changes in the hardcore/synth focus of separate tracks, every song still bleeds into the next, making monotony, not music.  In fact, despite spinning the EP upwards of a dozen times, the only track I can remember is “Mariposa” – but only because of the shear choral repetition.

If by chance I run across a song from the album while shuffling my iPod in the coming months, I doubt I’ll have any recollection of my time with Hands Like Glass.  With nothing remarkable to latch onto and call their own, I don’t see much of an opportunity for future growth – other than choosing and milking another exhasted trend.