Album review: Home Front – Watch It Die

‘We’re born alone / We die alone’ – how’s that for a radio-ready chorus hook? The irony to Light Sleeper, the lead single from Watch It Die, encompasses much of the duality around Home Front’s second album. Faced with the inevitable, the Edmonton band overpower bleak truths (‘A piece of my spirit dies every day’) with hunky-dory synth-rock, catapulting us back to the ’80s with some unshakeable new wave sensibilities.

Since forming in 2020 around the core duo of lead vocalist Graeme MacKinnon and multi-instrumentalist Clint Frazier, the Canadian quintet have been carving out their own electro-punk lane, visibly marrying the two worlds on their 2023 debut Games Of Power. Watch It Die seamlessly picks up that baton, doubling down on a sound that can draw in BBC 6Music dads just as easily as skinhead punks.

Consistently, Watch It Die is easy listening. That’s a compliment, given the way that gnarly guitar lines and shouted vocals can intertwine with synth lines you’d expect from The Killers, such as the motoring thump of Between The Waves. It’s also a critique on the simplicity of some melodies. The colourless synth line of New Madness and Light Sleeper’s lukewarm guitar solo both struggle to invoke any compelling sense of emotion.

That said, the hit-and-miss earworms don’t take away from the messaging behind Watch It Die, and the catharsis through which it is delivered. Dancing With Anxiety reshapes fear and dread into a workout-style jig, while Kiss The Sky feels like a vital expression of self-worth (‘And if I died a million times / At least I tried / To kiss the sky’), strangely reminiscent of the sentiment behind Beartooth’s 2023 hit I Was Alive.

Five-minute closer Empire turns the alt.rock hopefulness up to full volume, coming across as a tongue-in-cheek takedown of colonialism. With the final word, Home Front look to the future, reminding of the immortal act of releasing an album like Watch It Die, which can only be received as a net force for good: ‘The sun never sets on us.’

Verdict: 3/5

For fans of: High Vis, Spiritual Cramp, The Cure

Watch It Die is out now via La Vida Es Un Mus Discos