Anxious Houseguest – “The Woods Of This House”
Anxious Houseguest – “The Woods Of This House” – Single Review
I’m not powerful enough to resist what’s happening here in Anxious Houseguest. A project that I believe is a solo effort (not entirely sure – but I think so?) – if the rest of the music on the new album Second Guessing Everything is anything at all like this, sign me right up. This new-single “The Woods Of This House” is a serious stunner…absolutely full of emotion, depth and substance inside of the hooks that easily drift into your ears from your stereo, ready to make your head their new home.
You can hear a real mix of the good-stuff here on “The Woods Of This House.” Much like an early Death Cab For Cutie, Postal Service and spread out in atmosphere like spread out into space like the enveloping style of something like Angels & Airwaves. Not going to lie to you…I have met with an entire generation’s worth of musicians inspired by music like this…and while comparison nearly always enters into the life of a reviewer’s work when listening to new songs – there are truly few out there that have been able to capture this style/sound honestly. With Anxious Houseguest, I’m surprisingly not anxious at all…in fact, I’m calm on the outside while listening to this song, but on the inside emotions are stirring. I really feel like we have found that example of an artist that is doing this sound justice.
There are a few…you can even cite names like Faded Paper Figures, The Memory Tapes, or Owl City, though all of these would tend to be a much sweeter example of the overall sound you’ll find here by Anxious Houseguest, whose mood in “The Woods Of This House” echoes much more of something like an artist like Styrofoam would create. There’s melancholy to the melody you can hear…but it still retains an immaculately inspiring and hopeful tone to it all – and I love contrast like this when it’s done this well. What I like about any of the comparisons I’ve made so far, is that Anxious Houseguest could not be summed-up by one of them alone – this is multi-dimensional music that really has its own lifeblood to it. I’ll make one final comparison…but just because it really reminds me of one of my own all-time favorite bands…right in the breakdown of “The Woods Of This House” – dude sounds a lot like Limblifter from the In & Out album – one of the best-produced records of all-time. So go ahead – ASK ME if I’m stoked on what I’m hearing from Anxious Houseguest…you go right ahead.
I’m sure the answer to that is plenty clear by now. I LOVE this song. The lyricism has an artful poetic nature to it…the electro-beat is insanely addictive and the vocals are completely expressive in their energy and emotion. You combine that with top-notch production and clarity in the sound with its great ideas fully-realized in their ambition and you get yourself one POWERFUL track with “The Woods Of This House.” Not a damn thing about this song that isn’t worth writing home about or telling your best friend – I can’t imagine that Anxious Houseguest wouldn’t find residence on about a million stereos out there. Off the top of my head I can think of hundreds of people that I personally know that would love this cut and come to a finite decision that Anxious Houseguest stands an incredible chance of becoming a very, very big thing.
The gravitational pull of this track is like a black-hole of complete awesomeness. “The Woods Of This House” was pure audio delight for me to listen to – this was right up my alley and will likely sit atop my playlist for quite some time. Everything about its sincerity and movement in the writing really kept the track pulsing with a bleeding-heart’s worth of emotion…and all of it sounds like it comes from an incredibly real, incredibly authentic place.
BIG salute to Anxious Houseguest! This is definitely one of my favorite tunes I’ve heard this year without question and I’m beyond stoked to hear more from this project any time. I have a feeling we ALL will be though…and it could happen at any moment for a writer like this. Although Owl City would be the loosest reference of the bunch that I’ve compared Anxious Houseguest to – it still made me think of how one moment I was listening to “Fireflies” on my stereo…and the next moment I couldn’t NOT hear it anywhere I went. Or how like I used to review singles from Faded Paper Figures on a little site called Garageband (R.I.P.) as they first got together and tested the waters before they were signed. Things can change instantly for writers that put out material that really reflects their innermost thoughts, feelings, moods and emotions like this – and if I was the Anxious Houseguest…I’d keep my phone real close to me; that call-up to the next-level is sure to be coming.
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