Review: Home is Where/Record Setter - Dissection Lesson (EP)

Label: Father/Daughter Records &
Topshelf Records

This Split-release is dope. It's no throw-away material of both bands, it's no "nah, let's just do this cause we got some half-baked tracks left, that are not worth to grace our next album"-kind-of-Split, and it most definitely is no marketing gag or something. Hell, this even has a meaning behind it, a deeper message: "We wanted to make something unabashedly trans. Two trans bands. Songs about trans issues. Cover by a trans artist. We wanted to make something for the girls to pop off to."

HOME IS WHERE start us off with two new tracks. They are a rising star of the new Emo-Wave and garnered a lot of attention and an overall positive feedback with last year's "I became Birds". That record was pretty confusing, going from Folk to Screamo to Pop-Punk to Math-Rock to Midwest-Emo and all the way back. Somehow they managed to convince guys like me to cram them into the big ol' box of New-Wave-Emo. Somehow. But not for long. Trust me. Just listen to the opener of "Dissection Lesson". I had to check twice if I clicked on the right record and not mistakenly on a forgotten JEROMES DREAM-track. This is noisy, desperate, vicious, angry Emoviolence to the max and something that got me shocked right away, something I wouldn't have expected from this band. Their second track "Creationish" is more melodic, it's more moody, and it's three times as long as the opener... but it also strays away from what these guys did on "I became Bird". There's a cool build-up there, with long, rhythmic instrumental parts and a Post-Rock-like progression that turns the song into an epic who gets more intense by the minute. SOUL GLO's Pierce Jordan fits perfectly in there too. HOME IS WHERE's side just fucks and if this is the direction they're heading, than they have a potential masterpiece in the cooker...

RECORD SETTER would probably turned HOME IS WHERE down if they would've had the chance to listen to their new songs in advance.... cause, you know, how should you top this? I liked their 2020-album "I owe you nothing", but then again it was nothing that exactly stood out. They have their thing down and released said album on Topshelf Records, which speaks volumes. Their style is somewhere between Screamo, Emo and modern Post-Hardcore, with similarities to LA DISPUTE, PIANOS BECOME THE TEETH, THE SADDEST LANDSCAPE, KADDISH, FUNERAL DINER or even TOUCHE AMORE. They definitely have the right tools to make it bigger, but at heart they're deeply in love with the playful, sensitive, melancholic style of Midwest-Emo. The beautiful melodies are what drives them forward, especially in a song like "Plain English". RECORD SETTER hold up pretty well and add their own note to a flawless Split. I'm in awe!

Home is Where on Bandcamp
Home is Where on Instagram
Record Setter on Bandcamp
Record Setter on Instagram