A Hope For Home - In Abstraction

One of my big musical fears is when a band releases their follow-up to an album that had large critical acclaim and is one of my favorite records. When a band releases a masterpiece, fans (I) expect another masterpiece.

A Hope For Home's Realis is an amazing record. Every song on Realis was great and the album has a larger then life quality about. It's a sonically impressive record full of great dynamics. Loved it. So naturally I was a little worried about In Abstraction. How could A Hope for Home deliver a record that was even half as good as Realis?

With In Abstraction A Hope For Home made sure to not try and release a new version of Realis. Instead they have delivered a record that captures the heart that made Realis so good without returning to that sound. A Hope For Home continues their musical growth and evolution.

In Abstraction doesn't waste any time as Calm kicks right into the post hardcore A Hope for Home fans are familiar with but at over eight minutes long it doesn't take long for the song to move in different directions. Calm goes from post hardcore to a killer post rock song. Where Realis had a nice large sound and had a rich lush production, In Abstraction losses some of that lushness but has an epic quality that Realis didn't have. With the average song length being 7 minutes, it's easy for tracks to get boring but A Hope For Home have created enough space and give the listener enough dynamics and changes within the music that nothing is ever boring and the album is constantly shifting and moving in different directions that create a great listening experience.

The first two tracks feel like A Hope for Home but with a more post rock bent. Firewind and Weaves are real spacey and ambient tracks. Tides is an epic, slow building crescendo, while The House Where You Were Born is about as straight forward a rock song as one will get from A Hope for Home. Everything That Rises Must Converge is a super epic post rock track.

In Abstraction is amazing. A Hope for Home haven't outdone what they accomplished on Realis but reinvented, changed, and built upon everything good the band has done so far. A Hope for Home is one of those bands that doesn't disappoint and In Abstraction is a stellar record.