The House Flies make the Midwest feel haunted on new album 'Lions and Ore'

Across their eagerly awaited new album 'Lions and Ore', Moline, Illinois band The House Flies take the architecture of post-punk and goth-rock and stretch it into something broader, heavier and more atmospheric. The record still carries the cool melodic pull associated with bands like The Cure, Joy Division and Interpol, but there's also a distinctly rural unease running through it: conjuring images of houses, fields, heat, streetlights, sleep and abandoned things all existing inside the same shadowy landscape.

'Goodnight, Goodnight, Lover Dear' opens with hymnal and domestic imagery before expanding into a larger guitar sound, immediately establishing the record's interest in contrast. While 'Lost Literature' is the album's most immediate melodic moment.

Built around a late-night drive and fragments of memory, it has a sharper post-punk pulse and a more direct hook, whereas 'Derelict Crawl' pushes in the opposite direction. Heavier and more repetitive, its repeated "We don't belong" refrain gives the song a blunt, almost ritualistic intensity.

With Burnie Eckhardt now joining Alex Riggen on guitar throughout the album, The House Flies are able to create more depth between the melodic and abrasive sides of their sound. Shoegaze haze, goth atmosphere and heavier alt-rock weight can all coexist without the songs feeling overcrowded.

Standout offering 'Snakes and Toads' slows everything down into something darker and more devotional, while 'Count Us Down' finds a hypnotic centre in repetition, weather and streetlight imagery. 'Shelter Me' feels more enclosed and immediate, before 'The Glass, The Orchard' closes the record by moving from a quieter scene of memory and tenderness into a dramatic final build.

And it's that ending that perfectly captures what 'Lions and Ore' does best. Here, The House Flies understand that darkness becomes far more effective when there's space around it.

Instead of burying every song under noise, they let silence, repetition and atmosphere do part of the work. And the result is a record that feels like one long night unfolding somewhere just beyond the edges of town.