Grandma's House - No Place Like Home

By Jon Milton

You’ll be forgiven for thinking that a song called ‘No Place Like Home’ by a band known as Grandma’s House might be a feel-good schmaltzy number sung by a bunch of smiling, sickeningly wholesome individuals, tactically released ahead of Christmas to warm our hearts after a dreadful year. It is, however, a snarling piece of post-punk from an ‘all-female, queer punk trio known for their fast and raucous guitar riffs, thumping bass lines and aggressive drums’, and therefore far more amenable to our ears!

‘No Place Like Home’ is ‘an anthem born from the blackened ashes left behind by Brexit, focusing on the warped ideologies of the British press that continue to fester their way into the country’s psych, their shameless manipulation taking us sleepwalking towards division and damage that we may not recover from. The song breaks through the fog of Post-Brexit Britain and its fragmented values, where hate can seemingly exist without consequence, validated and veiled by the sensationalist tendencies of headlines and media’. 

The bands’ rhetoric forms part of what seems to a growing movement of disquiet within the alternative music scene in the state of the nation and the increasingly self-centred far-right behaviours that seem to have emerged since the Brexit vote. Its good to see artists getting angry, articulating their feelings and showing that they care, and it’s been a long time coming, too long in fact. No Place Like Home stands up well musically too, a real whirling dervish of a track that builds itself into a frenzy, reminiscent of early Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Slits with a bit of surf rock thrown in.      ​

The band were formed in late 2018, and they’ve toured extensively in their native Bristol having played most of Bristol renowned music venues such as The Louisiana, Rough Trade, Exchange, The Old England, playing alongside big names such as Frankie Cosmos, Rita Lynch and Stef Chura. Their debut single ‘Devil’s Advocate’ released earlier this year was well received, with So Young describing it as a ‘Molotov of untempered adrenaline’, and they managed to get it played on BBC Introducing within 4 days of the band uploading on the BBC website.

As for the future, surely they must be a brilliant option as support for IDLES on their tour next year – politically aware, angry energy and from the same city? 

No Place Like Home is out now