The XCERTS - 'i think i want to go home now' Album Review

3 hours ago
2 min read

Tracklist:

1. i think i want to go home now.

2. do it to myself

3. wow

4. sinking feeling

5. bury you

6. rinse repeat

7. pretty ugly

8. dream you in

9. losing it

10. breathe in what was

11. in your eyes

First things first, this is a very emotional and honest album, a return to The XCERTS early albums and, in my opinion, the best thing they’ve done in years! There is a rawness to the lyrics and playing that I don’t think they’ve had recently and an overall sense of a cathartic experience, it feels like making this album has allowed them to exorcise some demons.

It’s an album that’s come from personal trauma (as did most of their previous best work) and also some of the band spending more time than they have in a while back in their native Aberdeen which may have altered their perspective a bit.

The stalwarts of the Brighton music scene have called on their connections within that scene to help with this album, but it very much comes across as classic XCERTS. It’s got full on rock, it’s moments of reflection and fragility, it has emotional honesty and it has moments of full on punk energy.

What this is, as an album, is a series of melodic, energetic emotional songs that are beautifully crafted, played brilliantly and sung to perfection.

There are some classic examples of the slow songs The XCERTS excel at so well, the catch that appears in Murray MacLeod’s singing adding a whole new level of emotion and pathos.

These slow and emotional songs are balanced out by driving force of the guitar playing and what can only be described as full on rock. There are so many songs on this album that deserve to be played live and responded to by a crowd singing along. I see a few mosh pits forming as well.

This is very much a return to form, a tour de force of rock and an album that should be added to The XCERTS cannon of brilliant albums, it measures up to the early albums that introduced the band and showed the world what they are capable of.

The XCERTS themselves have always been in the upper echelons of British rock but may have had a slight wobble with their last album, this album makes it clear that was an aberration.

What I loved most about 'i want to go home' is I put it on and instantly knew I was going to have to listen to it all the way through with no interruptions and no distractions. It’s a body of work that deserves to be treated as a proper album, the kind that you put the needle down on and don’t move until you’ve listened to it all of the way through.

Any downsides? Personally for me no, I think some will quibble as to whether this is as good as the first two albums, I think it is but that’s one of the joys of music, we don’t all agree. However, if you do quibble, you’re very, very wrong, nuff said.