From The Indie Machine:
Ever lay in the back of a flatbed truck with five of your friends as you ramble up the side of a mountain en route to a forest of refer? Dance in a barnyard only to discover it’s your bedroom? Wheel around drunk in a joyous rage in the middle of a thunderstorm? It’s transcendental moments like these that turn into epic memories, scoring the soundtrack of your life. Entire Cities new album I Hope You Never Come Home possesses this effectual quality of familiarity that undoubtedly comes from their affinity for nostalgia with tell-tale lyrics narrating this proverbial trip down memory lane. Ironically, the title contradicts exactly what this album feels like: a good old fashioned warm welcome home.
Anthemic from the opening track Bruise Black, the peaks and valleys traversed rise and fall with crescendo after epic crescendo, from scrublands to highlands, resonating perfectly with each knee-slapping, boot-stomping, slow-dancing epithet. Spirited and whimsical, light hearted yet heady, Zombie Song (Dream Logic)captures this wistful paradox as a pseudo Memento Mori, a reminder of our mortality in its apocalyptic celebration of life; nothing like a crashing wall of sound to get the point across. Tower captures this build-it-up-to-burn-it-down mentality that echoes across the entire landscape of the album. And just when you thought it was safe to settle in, the calm before the storm suddenly gives way to an ethereal odyssey through varying time signatures and textured harmonies that catapult you straight into this beautiful frenzy of madness and tranquility. Closing with Predator Song, that calm returns with this hymnal prayer invoking the spirit of those distant yet distinct memories of laying around in a flatbed truck with five friends, reminding us we will always be welcome home. Amen to that.
NICOLE PROFOUS
Hall of Records 