NOLA-based genre-smashers HourHouse know all about the hard graft and building something from nothing.
Raised in an array of Louisiana parishes circling New Orleans, the quintet — vocalist Milly, guitarist and vocalist Nick "Neeco" Trahan, drummer Robb Barrio, bassist Travvy Thomas, and guitarist Mattie Cortopassi — found their way to each other via shared loves of (depending on who you ask) nu metal and hip-hop, horror films and country music, anime and streetwear, skateboarding and NFL, Meshuggah and…. Nickelback. A diverse buffet of influence, some might even say a mismatch, but it's this very diversity that forms the creative heart beating at HourHouse's very core.
Today, the band announces its debut album GOLD TOOTH GURU, which arrives November 10 via UNFD. Pre-save it here.
HourHouse also shared the video for "LSD." Watch it below and stick around to find out what happens after an epic (Hour)House Party!
"Nothing is what it seems. You control everything just look inside yourself," says Milly about the song and visual.
It's got all the swagger and style, the riffs and the rhymes — just like the rest of the album, which is full of crunchy, buzzsaw guitar attacks, plate-shifting breakdowns, trap beats, and 808 grooves. Keeping on top of it all, lead vocalist Milly oscillates effortlessly between raw, untamed bellows and spitting head spinning bars of complex rhyme, while his "podna"-in-crime Neeco comes correct with a whiskey-soaked throat that is shaded with as much Nashville as it is '90s Seattle. Yep, spend just a couple of minute with the HH "mob" and you'll be want to namedrop everyone from Meshuggah, Korn and Linkin Park to Kendrick, $uicideboy$, and Post Malone.
Milly notes that their hometown functions like a sixth member of the band due to the way the region and culture factor into their sound, stating, "Louisiana plays a heavy role into our sound and direction of the album — it's like a huge melting pot down here, different music everywhere you turn. Rap and metal are big here especially. We never wanted to box ourselves in with trying to be a certain type of band and only make one type of music."
The same applies to the subject matter and lyrical content.
Milly continues, "Our surroundings play a big part in the content. It may be out of the ordinary compared to most bands, but it’s all we've known. It's everything we’ve been brought up seeing and living through — it's not just Mardi Gras and voodoo down here, it can be a real warzone. The main themes are unity, determination, and staying true to yourself no matter what you go through. Hard times make strong people but sometimes those hard times feel like it's all you can see in front of you. Life for young people like us is constant highs and lows, and this album is sort of our way of navigating through it all."
