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If like many you’ve been enjoying Yard Act’s The Overload over the last month and are now looking for some more brash, politically-charged tunes of a similar ilk, then this latest EP from art-punk quintet Home Counties arrives just in time for you.

Hailing from a small town in Buckinghamshire, Home Counties quickly made a statement with their impressive debut EP Redevelopment back in late 2020, before then heading out on an extensive tour supporting the likes of Shame, Sports Team and bdrmm. Now Home Counties return with their brilliant self-produced EP In A Middle English Town — four tracks of upbeat, synth-fuelled punk through which they dissect narrow-minded village mentality and cut-throat Tory Britain through a semi-fictitious vision of Middle England.

Opener 'Back To The 70s' is easily the most urgent of the four tracks, with the band taking aim at the current parliamentary circus against a backdrop of suitably manic and chaotic synths. It also introduces the listener nicely to the band’s wry humour, with tongue-in-cheek lines such as “like Shaft but without social significance credits and theme song” and “in the cupboard I find Spam, misogyny and diazepam.” You can’t help but smile at the wittiness of it all, before the band then leave you silently stewing over the stinging refrain of: “You hit them with tax in double figures, how would the country collapse when it’s already in pieces?”

It's quite the dramatic start and that leads into the EP’s spiritual title track, 'The Home Counties'. Built around some playful and pretty wacky instrumentation, it’s almost reminiscent of a slightly demented version of the theme tune to Pat Sharp’s Funhouse...obviously a good thing. Narratively, the song tells the story of a nondescript married couple as they battle life’s constant ordinariness, with the repetition of the line “As the sun is going down in a Middle English town” perfectly reflecting the monotony of their typical day-to-day.

With 'Ad Gammon', the band then transport the listener over to Ashbourne in Derbyshire, with the anti-South sentiment displayed at the town’s annual no-rules football match playing inspiration for the track. Although the dry comedy value is still there in lines like “we don’t need your drones, we police ourselves”, sonically the song is much more aggressive than the others on the EP. With ominous synths and distorted vocals whirling around to create a mad cacophony, the tension steadily builds throughout the song, before the final minute erupts into a glorious instrumental of frenzied noise. 

The EP then closes out with poppy recent single Village Spirit, which is easily the most melodic of the four tracks here. Centred around a funky guitar groove, the song is loosely based around the book Village of Cannibals by historian Alain Corbin, which details a village coming together to murder a nobleman in late 19th Century France. It plays into the EP’s overriding themes perfectly and although it may seem a sombre tale to finish with, the contrasting buoyant sounds ensure it’s never dark or overwhelming. 

Although for some the stories and political nature of A Middle English Town may ultimately hit too close to home, this is still unquestionably an impressive second outing for Home Counties. By carefully balancing the complexities of the geographical and political divide in Britain through their own mix of irreverent humour and compelling brand of art-punk, Home Counties continue to quickly highlight themselves as one to watch going forward. 

In A Middle English Town arrives 11 February via Alcopop! Records.

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