3 out of 5

Label: init Records

Produced by: Jeff Halland (mixed by, mastered by)

I don’t know what caused Houston to return to us after twenty years, but I’m all for it. There are always a fair stream of bands reconvening way after the fact, which only fans of the groups will logically notice, so I don’t want to pitch this as the most unique event in history, but The Biggest Shove In Space does have some distinction: reunions, or returns, or etceteras, tend to fall into a couple main buckets of “same as they every were,” or “your mom and dad are now trying to make music for the kids.” The former has made for some amazing albums, where you can celebrate how skilled musicians don’t miss a beat; the latter… yeah, well, maybe we wait for their next album where they go back to doing what they know.

But there’s a smaller set of albums that ‘Space’ belongs to: same as they ever were, but different, factoring in the years that have passed. And there are pluses and minuses to that sometimes – as there are on this disc – but I find it to be the most exciting category, because it does really give you a feeling like the band has been here this whole while, and has just deemed it time to open the doors back up to listeners.

For Houston, that time has been spent honing their musicianship, carrying forward the BIG riffs of Bottom of the Curve, but also fiddling with the sonic explorations of Head Like a Road Map, and finding more successful ways to integrate them. The combination, frankly, sounds fantastic, with the mix from band member Jeff Halland maintaining the meaty sound of that decades-ago release, and skillfully not overwhelming that crispness and weight with the more digital elements, like treated drums. Houston’s sound is not necessarily “organic” – it’s very produced – but their sound, on these past two disc, even separated by the years, finds a balance between arena-filling rock and a kind of immediate warmth. ‘Biggest Shove’ sort of goes for more direct riffage than Bottom (which was already pretty direct), but I think that makes sense for a return, if that’s what we want to call this. The flip-side of that is the other, less positive way (subjectively) things have evolved, when some of the album starts to butt into more generic versions of their own sound, or softer alt-rock – i.e. the more palatable tunes that we might’ve called radio singles back in the 90s. This is a thread we can follow to the lyrics, which feel split between surface-level narratives and then more imaginative tellings; in both cases – music and words – it’s kind of like 2/3rds inspired, and 1/3rd adding lyrics and tunes to fill out an extra verse, or the overall runtime.

And, yeah, I really miss Halland’s vocal warble.

So The Biggest Shove in Space doesn’t rewrite the playbook, and maybe wanders into less definitively “Houston” moments often enough that it takes a few spins before the album starts to leave lasting impressions. But: those impressions do last once worn in, because this is music built from the same solid pieces as what came before.