This came out in 2005 — or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Bitter Hands Resign, the third album from Hamilton post-pop shoegazers A Northern Chorus, is a lot like The Maltese Falcon.
Not the book or the movie, mind you; the statue of the Falcon itself. No, this artsy eight-song offering is not a gem-encrusted statue of a scowling bird. It is, however, a creation of ethereal beauty — a soothing amalgam of glacially paced rhythms, glistening melody, swooshy atmospherics, orchestral overtones and forlorn mewling vocals with echoes of Radiohead or Sigur Ros, all wrapped in a thick blanket of reverb. What does all that have to do with the Falcon? Simple; they’re both the stuff dreams are made of.
