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Home
by Jake Alrich The first piece of information that greets you regarding Home’s new record, Sexteen, is that it’s a fucking concept album. This may be the first fucking Home record that has been billed as such, but for a band with so many fucking programmatic proclivities attending their work, it’s not surprising that the fuckers would eventually create something truly through-conceived. Words like “suite” and “waltz” find their way into Home’s fucking song titles, just as horns and fucking strings find their way into the arrangements. And fuck, they even give their albums fucking numbers instead of names. Fuck me, but you’ve gotta figure that a bunch of fucking guys who do all that are gonna take a fucking concept album and go fucking ape. Especially when the fucking concept behind said fucking concept album is…making love. Just kidding, it’s about fucking. Or really, it’s about wanting to fuck. One thing that Home seems to get instinctively is that the moment of longing, that sweet, lustful ache, is far more compelling material for a song than the sex act itself. And, not content with general declarations of desire, the band gets real specific: I want to “make you come like you’re on fire” (“Come”); I want to make love to you in a van (the achingly gorgeous “Straddle”); now, I want you to stay and cuddle (“Slide”). Maybe the best expression of carnal anticipation is “Cry”, a song that repeats the word “tonight” incessantly, and with orgiastic urgency. Who hasn’t felt the same giddy delirium when, after endless waiting, that moment of consummation is finally at hand? Musically, the overreaching grandeur that attended recent Home records is largely absent here. The horns and strings are largely silent, and the songs never threaten to depart into extended instrumental passages. With the exception of the two tracks that bookend the album, melodic themes aren’t revisited over different songs, as on previous records. Nope, this is pretty much a straight song collection about sex, and so those songs largely rise and fall on their own merit. Ironically, it loses focus when the music itself tries to get too sexy. Jokey sex bombs like “Juicy Ass,” and “Bubble,” are amusing enough at first, but, like an affair with the cleaning lady, the novelty dissipates quickly. The best songs, like the best lovers, are straightforward and perceptive, and they keep you coming back for more.
jake alrich is a singer/drummer for the brooklyn-based band,Falcon and the Snowman. he is also a singer-actor, like plays and shit. he has written occasionally for the village voice. this is his first piece for new york night train.
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