Digging into the back of my crates to find the unrequited relics of a previous eon of musical obsession. When my lungs look like two bowls of spilled porridge running down the rungs of my rib cage from breathing in all this disintegrated binding glue spewed from crumbling heaps of vinyl, I hope you kids will appreciate what I've done for you here... who am I kidding? I'd do this sort of thing even if it didn't pay!* Lock in because I've got a sleeper hit** for y'all, salvaged from the dumpster fire of 2016. A gem passed from one dying era to another. Buzzy, angular garage rock out of Boston, MA, that knows no limits, up to and including the maximum gain on their amps- torquing that sucker all the way over and then popping it off like a loose toenail. Earth Heart is the kind of stabby, rudimentary rock that was more or less prototypical indie-sleaze rock, released at just about the time that all the filth and vital furry had rung from that scene's collective amygdalas. Homesick is their debut and final LP, the end was the beginning, and the beginning was the end, and so on you see. Instrumentally, they're pretty much Joy Division meets the Thermals with surf guitars. Vocally, we have something like Cassie Ramone doing an Iggy Pop impersonation. Pitchfork would have rubbed themselves raw over this album had it dropped during the first Obama administration, but back in '16 they were too busy chasing ad payola and playing footsie with pop-star publicists to singe their prissy little fingers on Earth Heart's fire-digging frenzy. And now? Well, now they have better things to do, apparently, like pushing high gloss photos and premium cologne on a demographic that barely deodorizes and regularly wears Ts and jeans to graduation parties and family funerals alike.*** That's fine. Their loss. You're here and not there because you and I know where the goods are buried, and hate to get our feet wet- so we seek higher ground and avoid sinking ships. Speaking of high points, the songwriting on Homesick is as classic as it comes, simplistic, even riffy, and wonderfully uncomplicated with a reverb-y finish. My favorite track on the album is probably “Homesick” with its carefree air and stipulated jangle guitars, drawing lyrically from singer Katie Coriander’s years as a bald-headed vagabond, squatting across the country after spontaneously throwing away all her possessions and abandoning her apartment. I’d also recommend the stumbling, dark rockabilly cruiser “Burn,” and the rhythmic post-punky twirl of “Iron Lung” as good places to start. Really though there is no bad place to drop the needle on this one. Even almost a decade into its existence, Homesick holds up as a statement in its own right, as well as a final flaring whisp of a waning era- sturdy as it is stirring- dependable even as the passion it excuses threatens to burn the casa that it's raised down to the floorboards.
