Homebound: Coming Of Age

Artist: Homebound
Title: Coming of Age
Format Reviewed: MP3
Format Released: 21st July 2014
Reviewed By: Quinn

Three words spring to mind when listening to Coming of Age which are, fun, energetic and fun. Technically that's only two words but I thought one of them so important I stated it twice. I've been trying to think of the right narrative and tone to give this review, that will express those two, neè three, words that perfectly describe this 17 minute pop-punk romp. However, inspired by Apple's iPhone 6 launch event last night I have decided to write a pretentious, over-hyped review that will encourage you to drop at least £600 on this new release.

When deciding to write this unapologetically raucous EP Homebound knew they had to redesign the wheel, in the hopes of releasing something fresh, inspired, and revolutionary, full of power and passion that invited your ears to bleed as your ear drums burst at the sheer weight of the over whelming joy being pumped into them from the very beginning, right up to the final, sleek harmonious notes.

OK scrap that, this isn't an Apple launch event, there's no broadcast truck test card and U2 aren't here to give away their album to half a billion iTunes subscribers. Let's do this properly. With all the linguistic professionalism of a pregnant dung-beetle.

Coming of Age opens with the infuriatingly short Valour.  Infuriating because it comes with the feeling of ending abruptly after 90 seconds, just as you are getting into it. It's a nice opener, but the way it ends doesn't feel natural and personally, I think short openers should be left for full length albums.

I get over it fairly quickly though as the rest of the EP has so much to offer. You sometimes forget that it's only five more tracks because they all offer so much despite being standard length, 2.5-3.5mins, for pop-punk tracks.  Not a single one lets up.  Each and every song is a banger, a track that you instantly get into and gets you moving, bobbing  your head and tapping along, or whatever the alternative is for guitarists. It must have been hard for them to choose a track to record a video for because any one of them would have been perfectly fine, but they chose the title track which they opt to close the album with.  Anyone who read my Haze review will know this is my favourite thing, subverting the usual title track as the first track rule and throwing it right at the end so five shiny gold stars for them to display proudly on their MySpace Reverb Nation Facebook Bandcamp Soundcloud  … what platform are we hosting on these days?

The press release says they spent a year writing this EP.  If that's true then it has certainly paid off. Each track is meticulous in its efforts to create an energy that mixes effortlessly with the emotive story telling that you don't even notice the wild structures giving every song a unique freshness that is earned on each repeat listening.

My only criticism is that given this band are from Surrey, lead singer Charlie sings as if he is from California. Tut tut tut. Bad form Charlie, bad form.

I realise I haven't said an awful lot about the tracks themselves; that's because it's hard to articulate just how good they are without getting too cliché, but I love it, and I want to play shows with these boys.

By the way, Coming of Age is only £3, not £600, in case anyone missed the blatant satire at the start of this article. Go buy it. Now. I'm waiting ….