Every House We Built is an album as layered as it is chameleonic, a distillation of a broad spectrum of influences from pop to prog into an expansive, shapeshifting sound. There’s swirling piano, big sticky choruses, even a strong twang of ‘80s pop in places, and more than one plunge into a breakdown. The odd part is that they’ve made this possible despite the unique quirk of being a rock band with no guitarist in their ranks.
“I feel really privileged that I’m in a band where we’re not having to worry about how something will work with guitars,” says Jonny. “It looks like a limit that we’re guitarless, but it actually frees you up, because in a way we can just use anything. The number of instruments on this album, both real and with samples and arrangements is huge, and that’s because we feel like there’s actually quite a lot of freedom that comes from that.”
Every House We Built’s other defining quality is its rich tapestry of emotion and experience. The connecting thread through all of these songs is relationships, whether familial, friendly, or romantic, as common, essential and foundational to human existence as the roofs over our heads. It’s a photo album of universal journeys, through love and loss, grief and absence, but the lines between whose story is whose on the album have been thoroughly blurred.
Because Jonny, Matt and Lynsey have experienced so much together in the years since they met in their university days at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, their individual experiences now feel like collective ones. After all, the power of connection and empathy mean that when a friend goes through something, you’re pulled along on that journey with them, absorbing the distant shockwaves of their emotions.
“We’re bringing things from our lives as individuals,” says Lynsey, “but we went through them together. We could get into whether that’s healthy, but the cornerstone of our friendship is to be in each other’s pockets a bit.”