In many ways, Hunting Season, the third album by Florida emo group Home Is Where, taps into a growing trend: US bands emerging from indie circles and embracing country sounds. Yet while a band like Wednesday – among the most significant voices in this wave – blend their Southern tones with shoegaze elements, Home Is Where do something similar but with various emo characteristics: hardcore breakdowns (complete with palm-muted distorted guitars), math-rock arpeggios, screaming. And over the top of it all, those glorious pedal steel flourishes.
With their 2021 debut I Became Birds, centred on the queer perspective of frontwoman Brandon MacDonald, Home Is Where caught attention for the way they echoed Neutral Milk Hotel – vocally, of course, but also through a similar combination of raw simplicity and folk instrumentation. The follow-up The Whaler was even better, its conceptual frame (the theme was 9/11) more sharply defined. The new album, Hunting Season, is another triumph.
Overall, Hunting Season takes its time more than its predecessors, and not just because of the length of the songs or the album itself; listeners with short attention spans will find little reward here, as the bursts of emotional release arrive less frequently. This is what makes it a genuine grower: it’s worth sticking with, and songs like »shenandoah« have left me even more tender in tender moments. »I only want to sing for you«, MacDonald sings.
Hunting Season
