Homecoming - Those We Knew

Homecoming – Those We Knew
Release Date: 19th April 2024
Label: Copper Feast Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Alt Metal, Sludge, Post-Metal, Doom, Progressive Metal, Stoner, Grunge.
FFO: Alice In Chains, Tool, Cult of Luna, Horion, The Ocean, Mountaineer, Vesperine, Mastodon.
Review By: Mark Young

I am going to go out on a limb right now: This is one of the best releases you will hear this year. Its sense of scale, the breadth of ideas expressed within a single song, is magnificent. From the post-grunge start of Tell Me Something with stabs of extreme metal that come in unexpectedly, there is a constant propulsive movement, the four-piece are locked in total unison and completely on top of their game. It bobs and weaves on its journey and then turns 180 degrees, dropping the cleans, albeit briefly whilst the tempo is picked up. What is great here is that the sense of melody doesn’t disappear in favour of opting for a heavy hand. In the space of one song, they have touched upon multiple genres without sounding forced or fake. It shouldn’t work, but it does, and in doing so sets a high bar for the rest of the album. Can they keep this up?

In short, yes.

The following songs just go everywhere, Red Rose has this wonderful melody line that sits there and does its thing. It’s difficult to describe except that it just plays out and fills the sound without being over the top of everything else. If there is a template they follow, it’s not one that means each song is a carbon copy of the one before it. What they do is seemingly put an album’s worth of ideas into one song, so you go from this quiet, introspective period into that heavy post-rock approach that loops back to its beginning. Blood of My Blood goes for low-key, mournful, with those fantastic cleans cutting through from Théo Alves Guiter. The quiet doesn’t last too long, and they navigate a path that takes you on a musical journey. Remember when I said about the breadth of ideas? Add excellence of execution to that (thanks, Bret Hart) because each moment is just quality, with the song lengths forgotten because the songs grab you so well.

Interlude II is exactly that, a palate cleanser of fluid guitar work, unhurried in the opening moments and more of those chord choices that makes it stand out. For me, the mark of a great song, no matter the genre – thrash, death, pop, shoegaze whatever is that if it makes you want to learn how to play it, that you are inspired to have a go is a measure of how good it is. Interlude II, like the ones before, is that kind of song. Bounding from the calm into the storm, it just has that much going on that you lose sense of time and lose yourself within it.

Shores brings the dynamics, clean guitar and an incendiary solo that starts it off until it blows itself out. It shares the same atmosphere as Interlude II, playing out as a companion piece in some respects. That exceptional guitar work is there again, combining so well with the vocals as they push forward into a death metal delivery as what feels like a storm-cloud passing overhead. Those vocals twist further, from extreme into the cleans once more, whilst maintaining the heavy delivery. There is a fresh urgency here with an early Mastodon vibe running through it as it just goes from idea to idea, each one landing so well that Shores is just a powerhouse of a track. Some albums have a standout track, but this is a standout of standout tracks. The ending transitions into the closing track, Gift of Eyes, and it is a fitting end. Taking the baton and just going for it, they just go where they please as they go from rock to extreme to gaze and back again. There is no let up in quality, and it just seems as natural as breathing out that they can do this. There is so much to take in, and repeated listens will only enrich that listening experience. It is an absolute stunner of an album, each of the six songs tells a different story and goes about doing it differently from the others. Nothing is off limits in terms of tools to be used, and it’s frightening just how good this is. Truly excellent.