Album Review: Home Is Where - Hunting Season

Throughout their hunt for the greatest American song, the band instead released something worth keeping. ‘Hunting Season’ continues to expound upon country tones, a sonic shift that only allows Home Is Where to harness stickier melodies and gleeful songwriting to an exponential degree.

Back when Home Is Where released ‘the whaler’, that album represents the point where their brand of emo has expanded upon with refinement as well as leaning through what made them exceptionally unique in the realms of emo and post-hardcore, as their melodic packets and songwriting aspects have cultivated to the point that it’s fascinating where they’ll go onwards next. Especially as soon as that record is released, the band has very much returned to the studio to pull together what’s next in their discography, where all the personal excitement and anticipation have gone through the roof. Thus, in following suit with that shambling high-concept masterpiece, the band seems to gradually move into something much hopeful for their newest record, ‘Hunting Season’.

‘Hunting Season’ is the album where, in comparison with their last project, the band aims to become more extensive, stretching the runtime to 55 minutes as they continue to really lean into the country tones that they have introduced on ‘the whaler’, but are now fully equipped for this album. Bringing back Jack Shirley to allow these waves of saloon piano, pedal steel, theremin, and shuffling acoustics to sound brighter and sharper. An overall net good as the band fleshes out these melodies with more hooks, flavorful vocals, and dazzling fusions of emo, post-hardcore, and country. Having so much buoyant flair with the boisterous stomps of ‘migration patterns’ and ‘bike week’, the nimble guitar patterns that lead to the ruckus passages of ‘artificial grass’, the jaunty piano and harmonica that accent the shuffling melodies and guitar solos of ‘milk & diesel’ and ‘the wolf man’, and the 10 minute roiling simmer of ‘roll tide’ with its burrowing drum and guitar melodies that then blows off into smithereens into the back half.

The extensive length does allow the band to let the emphasis on softer singing and gleaming atmosphere cut through with warmth. Bringing enough subtlety amidst the high-energy tones. Majorly presented within tracks like the cozy acoustics and pianos of ‘stand-up special’ that bubbles up with the excited shouts, the prominent pedal steel melody that floats along the gentle tune of ‘everyone wins the lotto’, the shimmering melodic warmth that surfaces upon ‘shenandoah’, and the straightforward country tones that gives ‘mechanical bull’ a welcoming embrace to its melody.

All of this direction eventually leads to the overall writing, where there is still a ridiculously insane concept that the band is exploring: playing 13 Elvis impersonators and illustrating the last parts of their memories before they eventually pass away through the flames caused by a car crash. On the surface, the details manage to sketch what each of these Elvis impersonators distinctly remembers before their death, yet what is revealed within those memories makes for compelling themes being shown. Even in the midst of the hellscape that is America, a country that may seem to really put these Elvis impersonators in an exhausting whirlpool, there is this speck of hope and glee that spills out of the gutter, even despite the depression, numbness, and meaninglessness that continues to succumb in their minds.

Those themes only get deeper through some specific details. The trans subtext on ‘milk & diesel’, the insight surrounding the revealing of darkness around these impersonators on ‘the wolf man’, and the consistent thematic motif of grasping love despite the protagonists’ personal flaws only uplifts those hopeful and humorous details even further. There may be the presence of darkness that only makes the band as well as the Elvis impersonators’ lives much tougher to go through, but the acknowledgement of holding to their cherished connections as well as the essence of hope and humor despite all the chaotic friction is a message that’s worth keeping overall.

Dazzlingly rich in tone, melody, and gleeful resonance, Home Is Where manages to keep on growing through the country sonic shift that nestles well with their unique sense of songcrafting and songwriting. ‘Hunting Season’, despite melodically blurring itself from time to time, has the constant ray of hope and humor that ultimately makes these tunes still majestic all the same. The band might not have written their greatest American song, but they have hunted down the fire that will keep their hope alive.

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Favorite Tracks: ‘migration patterns’, ‘artificial grass’, ‘stand-up special’, ‘bike week’, ‘everyone won the lotto’, ‘shenandoah’, ‘milk & diesel’, ‘mechanical bull’, ‘the wolf man’, ‘roll tide’

Least Favorite Track: ‘black metal mormon’