Album review: The XCERTS – i think i want to go home now.

For a moment there, it seemed like The XCERTS had lost their way. The Brighton-based trio knew that the in-your-face experimentalism of 2023’s Learning To Live And Let Go was going to push buttons. Ironically, many of that record’s highlights were as romantic, earnest and full of teenage exuberance as any of their cherished fan favourites. From the outside, though, the fluorescent hair dye and alt.rock sleaze looked like an identity crisis.

So, on first impressions alone the confessional tone and big, fuzzed up choruses of sixth album i think i want to go home now. could be seen as a retreat to safer waters. ‘I’m told it’s good to feel alive,’ Murray Macleod yells on do it to myself over Tom Heron’s surging beats, before dropping the kicker, ‘I’ll inherit my father’s hope when I die.’ As they navigate the turbulence of grown-up problems, from bereavement to crumbling relationships, it’s clear that the trio formed 23 years ago are still searching for peace of mind.

‘No poetry in it when the cancer blooms,’ Murray croons in conspiratorial, whisky-warmed tones on rinse repeat, referencing his father’s diagnosis, before mixing in his own dissolving relationship. ‘The house is a ghost town, a room to sleep in.’ These strong emotional currents, which include the passing of bassist Jordan Smith’s mum, collide and imbue all the songs with the same sense of confusion and vulnerability as a child left home alone. The woozy guitars and slow, warm bass drone of dream you in unfold like a soothing lullaby. Elsewhere, the spirited, fuzzbox-stomping wow is pure slackerpop heaven.

Rather than a retreat, i think i want to go home now. backs up their formative instincts for yanking heartstrings with the confidence of experience. Hairstyles may change, but The XCERTS know that home is where the heart is.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Twin Atlantic, Spanish Love Songs, The Menzingers

i think i want to go home is released on July 10 via FLG