The Home Team‘s The Crucible Of Life is probably one of our most anticipated albums of 2024. Singles like ‘Loud‘ and ‘Brag’ had us jamming out and anxiously awaiting the full album and The Crucible Of Life did not disappoint. Before you do anything else or read any further, go stream it ASAP.
The album is aptly titled. The Crucible Of Life overall is a story of the way life shifts and changes without warning, notably told through a more explicit lens. Some of the lyrics are suggestive, leaning more on innuendo, while some are explicit and not shy about exactly what they mean. Each song brings a unique sound to the album while still blending together cohesively to create the perfect listening experience. It’s clear that The Home Team put a lot of effort and passion into The Crucible Of Life to create something amazing and they exceeded every expectation.
This album is aptly named after how it felt to create it. Before Slow Bloom, it had been such a grind for us to get to that point that we felt as though the world was hardening us, only to realize that once we were able to make music our career and meet our goals, that intensity basically just doubled.
Brian Butcher
In honor of the album’s release, we thought we’d share a few of our standout tracks from the album. We’re not talking about some of the previously released singles (although we love them dearly) to give the rest of the album a chance to shine. And this list definitely isn’t comprehensive but putting the entire tracklist felt like too much. So without further ado, here are standout tracks from The Home Team’s The Crucible Of Life:
‘Turn You Off’
The Crucible Of Life starts out STRONG. Seriously, The Home Team came out of the gate swinging with ‘Turn You Off.’ It’s loud, it’s high energy, and the VOCALS? Stellar, that’s all we can say. We love, love, love the way the beat shifts around 2 minutes in before the final chorus kicks in. The production of this song is absolutely everything and we can confidently say that ‘Turn You Off’ will live on repeat for us for a while.
‘Walk This World With Me’
This pick is admittedly wildly different sonically than our other picks on this list. But the entire notion of “would you walk this world with me?” is just so damn sweet we were drawn to ‘Walk This World With Me’ from the start. That’s another great part of this album though; The Crucible Of Life is taking you on a 12-track sonic journey. The narrative of this song is a big reason why we love it so much and we like the tonal and sonic shift it adds in the middle of the album. And yeah, maybe we’re just suckers for a good romantic notion, sue us!
We no longer had the luxury of being at home nearly as much, and there was a lot more pressure on making sure that this album lived up to Slow Bloom. We do however totally feel like we’ve come out the other side so much more unified in what we’re looking for a stronger for it.
Brian Butcher
‘Love & Co.’
The production? The guitar? The beats?? If you asked us to sum up groovy in a song, it would be ‘Love & Co.’ It is so catchy we simply cannot stop listening to it. It makes perfect sense that this is the final single accompanying the album’s release. It has us dancing in our seats, in our car, really anywhere we’re listening to it. We also feel like it has whispers (ha ha) of the Slow Bloom era and we absolutely love it. The Home Team is taking their sound to new heights with The Crucible Of Life while still being authentically themselves.
‘Somebody Else’s Face’ (ft. Broadside)
Anything that says “ft. Broadside” is immediately a win in our book. And the combination of Brian Butcher and Oliver Baxxter’s vocals never ever disappoints. ‘Somebody Else’s Face’ is the perfect sound for a Broadside feature and Broadside was the perfect choice to have as a feature. The entire thing was simply meant to be! ‘Somebody Else’s Face’ is one of the more lyrically explicit, angstier tracks and the intensity of it is everything. When Oliver said “and if you leave I swear I might just die” we felt that. Everything about this makes it a stand-out track and one of our favorites for sure.
Like we said, if we could just list the entire album here, we would. However, since that would take up all of your time that could be used to stream The Crucible Of Life instead, we opted against it. We knew The Home Team would deliver a no-skip album but The Crucible Of Life blew every expectation we had out of the water. It’s probably one of our favorite albums to come from the scene this year and after you’ve heard all of it you’ll likely agree with us. We can’t wait to catch some of these songs live during the Summer School Tour, which kicked off earlier this week. If you’re in that same boat, be sure to grab your tickets ASAP.
Alright, time for you to sound off on The Home Team and your favorite tracks from The Crucible Of Life. Let us know your thoughts by commenting below or finding us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, where we’re always buzzing about something!
Keep up with The Home Team and more of your faves by checking out the rest of our music news! Gotta make sure you don’t miss a thing!
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE HOME TEAM:
FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | SPOTIFY | TIKTOK | TWITTER
1 Comment
Pingback: The Final Session Of idobi's Summer School Tour Hits Anaheim! - The Honey POP