Early single review: Hometown - Emergency Break

Imagine Emergency Break releasing a song, with the title not being in all capitals. Only joking. Their next single is called HOMETOWN and it’s coming out on Friday the 8th of November.

After Everything You Make I Break and Can You Feel It, Emergency Break are releasing their 3rd single in 2024, Hometown. The young indie rock band from London are building up to their first EP, which will contain 6 of their songs, including all 3 of their 2024 singles.

Emergency Break have been performing Hometown live for quite a few months now, so you will find clips on the ArtsyMix channel on Youtube, from their performances at The MacBeth, The O2 Academy Islington and their own festival, On The Meadow.

The inspiration for the song came when front man Leo Gerchen moved to New York for a year, as part of his training as an actor. While living in New York, he reflected on the people he had left behind and what could change while he was away from them. He found himself isolated and homesick, while the different time zones and other circumstances were making it difficult to keep contact with a lot of people.

Influenced by his ongoing theatrical education, he took the real facts and gave them a twist of fantasy and mystery, which enables listeners to give their own interpretation to the song.

And the script (lyrics) is not the only thing that was dramatized. As the song was turning out to be a ballad, Leo and the band wanted to make it more Emergency Break-like, so they added screaming and tense, as well as high tempo, heavy drums and guitar distortion. They even set the title in all capitals, keeping it in line with all their previous releases.

Emergency Break keep making steps forward with every new thing they do. Every live performance is better than the previous one. Every new audio track is a better production than the previous one. Even the music video of Hometown is on a new level. The official video which will be available at the time of the release, shows clips of members of the band from when they were kids, mixed with clips from recent live performances as a band. Once again, the theatrical education that Leo, Ewan and Joe have had, combined with the work of people they collaborate with, gives us a video that tells a story on multiple levels.

Hometown is the first production that was mastered outside their own internal circle. It was recorded at Roundhouse Recording Studios in Camden with recording engineer Tom Baird and it was mastered by Pete Maher.

Little snippets from the audio recording will be available only on Instagram stories from ArtsyMix. You can find the link at the top of this website.