Home Front : "Watch it Die'

These charming Canadian punkers are back. They play a melodic yet tense style of punk that flirts with post-punk, but even with the synths that crop up time to time there is more of aggression driving the songs that keeps them with their dominant foot being planted in punk. Sometimes the subtle ambiance created by the more experimental elements like synths does cast a shadow on the mood and darkens it a bit. If there are any doubter as to the merit of their punk status just listen to the guitars and vocals of " Light Sleep". It is not their fault if they are giving their songs room to breathe and using melody, the feel of the songs is more punk than many bands that get called punk these days. 

This does not mean there are not moments where they do cross over into new wave as heard on songs like "Between the Waves ", which aside from the vocals sound like it could have come out in the 80s. Vocally they are too entrenched on punk. "Eulogy"  finds the guitars coming back to balance out the synth experiments. The strummed guitar for "the Vanishing" is the first song that loses the more punk roots at it's core, but it's a decent 80s new wave homage. They go to the other end of the spectrum with "For the Children" which is more Oi !

"Kiss the Sky" works off a dancey vibe and solid feel for the era they are recreating here. It's weird because this was no the life skin heads were about in the 80s , but that is where we are at here and it works. "Always this Way" finds punk attitude bringing brought to a more rock context. There is a more tense post-punk tension to "Dancing with Anxiety". "Young Offender" finds them with the electronic elements in perfect balance with the punk sound that is more of who they are.  The last song is the only one wehre they seem unsure the direction they want to commit to, it is not a bad song, but not on the level of the rest of the album. So over all I will give this album a 9.5, I think it's an effective step forward  for this project.

pst589