Home Counties - The Home Counties

When we met with Home Counties last year to talk about their debut 'Redevelopment' EP, lead singer/guitarist Will Harrison commented that their next EP would be more defining of the band, with his bandmate Barn suggesting that it would 'more Talking Heads and less Parquet Courts'. The bands standalone singles 'Modern Yuppies' and 'White Shirt/Clean Shirt' released earlier this year gave a glimpse of this new direction, and now new single 'The Home Counties', the first track out from their new 'In a Middle English Town' EP further signals the bands line of travel. 

Wry, playful lyrics and a bouncy tune combine to make The Home Counties a bit of an ear worm and one that does indeed move them away from that purely guitar-led sound that dominated the Redevelopment EP, with wonky synth lines a-plenty working very nicely with those trademark intricate guitar riffs. All very good indeed.

​Speaking about the song, Will says: 

The song ‘The Home Counties’ is set in a small town somewhere in the South of England and centres around a generic married couple and their daily existence. It is about mundanity, claustrophobia and suspicion of everything outside of the semi-detached. The characters are placeless and nondescript, emblematic of the uniformity of middle-class people across the commuter belt."

The band were apparently quite nervous when unleashing this new direction at their sold out headline show at the 100 club earlier this year but the new tracks all worked very well and whet our appetites for the new EP, which has its full release on Alcopop Records in February next year. ​  

Accompanying the EP will be a Headline Tour taking in Oxford, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Southampton, Brighton and finally London, and if you're planning on heading out to see BDRMM over the next couple of weeks, they'll be gracing your presence as support.