Home Counties announce their debut album, Exactly As It Seems

Following the band's two acclaimed EPs, Redevelopment, and In A Middle English Town, the new album arrives on the heels of two sold-out "secret" London shows and the album's vibrant first taste, "Bethnal Green".

Produced and recorded by the band's guitarist Conor Kearney and mixed by Andy Savours (Black Country New Road, Rina Sawayama, Sorry), speaking more on "Wild Guess", the band's Will Harrison said: "Wild Guess is the oldest song but latest addition to the new album. It voices a variety of concerns: day-to-day financial worries, fear of social isolation in old age, even a looming future of ecological collapse. It was written as part of an experimental side project which saw never the light of day - and in its original form was like a deranged version of the Wii Sports loading screen, hosting a detuned Ed Miliband speech in replace of the vocals."

"We revisited the song many times over the years but it never felt quite Home Counties. Over the last year however, as our sound was shifting we gave it one last go. It was an exercise in restraint, holding ourselves back to allow the song to breath. That said, we couldn’t resist retaining some of the original chaos of the original demo, sticking in a drum and bass inspired drop at the end. In that way, the song sets the new parameters of where Home Counties is at the moment..."

With last year’s In A Middle English Town EP propelling their live set into full-on hedonistic party territory, the addition of new vocalist Lois Kelly in late 2022 completed their transformation, with the band fully embracing the power of a good time. “We just love songs that are dance-y and we want our gigs to be fun. On our last tour we were finally at a stage where we had enough new material, on top of the last EP, where every song basically felt like a dance song: that’s the music we like to listen to and the shows we want to go to. I don’t really consider us a guitar outfit anymore. We want to be a more melodic band, with pop tunes and catchy songs," said Will.

The band have also announced UK headline tour in May 2024 with dates at London's Oslo, as well as shows in Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Cardiff, and Leeds. Tickets are available now with every album pre-order, and general sale starts on Friday at 10am.

Tracklist:

1. Uptight
2. Bethnal Green
   
3. Funk U Up
   
4. Dividing Lines
   
5. Push Comes To Shove
   
6. Wild Guess
   
7. You Break It, You Bought It
   
8. Cradle Coffin
   
9. Exactly As It Seems
   
10. Posthumous Spreadsheets