HOME COUNTIES make bold return with new single ‘Spain’
With the release of ‘Spain’, Home Counties return not with a continuation, but a clear-eyed creative pivot. Produced by Al Doyle (of Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem), the London six-piece’s new single takes aim at the creeping fear of becoming everything you once stood against, a disillusioned version of yourself hiding under the Spanish sun. ‘Spain’ premiered on Steve Lamacq‘s BBC 6 Music show last night. The band also today announce a full UK headline tour for November and December, culminating in their biggest headline show to date at Scala, London.
The first music to be heard since the band’s acclaimed 2024 debut album ‘Exactly As It Seems’, new single ‘Spain’ was written about confronting your own moral decay through the metaphor of a British expat. Built around glowering synths and a darker, more expansive palette, the song captures a volatile internal dialogue between two versions of the same person – one idealistic, the other world-weary. It’s a portrait of internal erosion, delivered with a deadpan intensity and a tightly coiled rhythmic pulse that leaves little room for resolution.
Reflecting on the compromises and contradictions of adult life with dry wit and dancefloor-ready conviction, it marks a confident leap forward in sound, tone and ambition for Home Counties. While their debut ‘Exactly As It Seems’ traded in bright edges and eccentricity, ‘Spain’ dives into something leaner, colder and more thematically complex.
“‘Spain’ is essentially an argument with yourself,” explains frontman Will Harrison. “It’s about growing older and fearing the person you might become, or are already becoming. Taking the form of a conversation between a starry-eyed idealist and life-weathered realist, it imagines watching an argument between a younger and older version of yourself. It’s about figuring out if you can grow up without losing sight of your values or if it’s just a worthless endeavour.”
The track’s concept is underpinned by a potent visual metaphor: “The song uses the idea of a British expat living in Spain as the ultimate embodiment of everything you fear of becoming, losing all self-awareness and care about society as you slip further into individualism with age (basically worrying about growing more right-wing). It paints a picture of your future self being numb, hollow and weathered, ‘burnt’ and ‘dying in pain’ – ‘all the bad things [you] used to hate’. But at the end, it imagines waking up as someone retired in Spain, and realising it might not be so bad after all. There’s a sentiment of ‘if this is what moral decline feels like, sign me up!’”
Following a huge 2024 that included the release of their critically acclaimed debut album ‘Exactly As It Seems’ (Submarine Cat Records), a sync on the EA Sports FC 24soundtrack, and sold-out headline shows across the UK, including 3 in London at the 100 Club, Oslo Hackney and Omeara, ‘Spain’ signals a creative turning point for Home Counties, as Harrison explains:
“For this new music, we gave ourselves time to experiment and to refine sounds in a way we had never done on previous releases. It also led to a more collaborative approach in the studio, with us performing collectively on the same synthesiser to capture more human performances from electronic instruments. ‘Spain’ was the first song we wrote for our upcoming second album, and we think it encapsulates the next era of Home Counties.”
Home Counties‘ new single ‘Spain’ is out now on Submarine Cat Records. Home Counties play The Great Escape Festival in Brighton this week. Tickets for Home Counties’ headline tour go on sale at 10am on Thursday 15th May, here.
LIVE DATES
MAY
17 – Alt Escape (Hope and Ruin), Brighton
17 – Great Escape (Horatio’s Bar), Brighton
20 – Footsteps Festival (Paper Dress Vintage), London SOLD OUT
25 – Bearded Theory Festival, Derbyshire
25 – A Stones Throw Festival, North Shields
30 – Wychwood Festival, Cheltenham
JULY
04 – Weekend Rumble Festival, Usk
27 – Truck Festival, Oxford
AUGUST
01 – Waldstock Festival, Steinhausen
03 – Y Not Festival, Pikehall
SEPTEMBER
13 – Schippersweekend, Belgium
OCTOBER
04 – Night Currents, Portsmouth
11 – Shiny New Model, Cambridge
17 – Wild Paths, Norwich
NOVEMBER
22 – Rough Trade, Bristol
23 – Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
24 – Green Door Store, Brighton
27 – Bodega, Nottingham
28 – Flying Duck, Glasgow
29 – Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds
30 – YES Pink Room, Manchester
DECEMBER
01 – Hallamshire Hotel, Sheffield
02 – Scala, London
Across their releases to date, Home Counties have firmly established themselves as one of the UK’s most vital alternative bands.
Drawing from a broad-ranging pocket of influences: early 2000s pop, the “dopamine overload” of Confidence Man’s live shows, to LCD Soundsystem, The Slits, and the nuanced art-rock of ‘Remain In Light’/’Speaking In Tongues’-era Talking Heads, on their 2024’s critically acclaimed debut album ‘Exactly As It Seems’, Home Counties unanimously leaned into a fun, exploratory way of thinking.
Home Counties have played host to notable sold out headline shows at London venues including Oslo Hackney, the 100 Club, Omeara and The Lexington, as well as embarking on nationwide headline tours, and support tours with Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, FEET, Courting and bdrmm, adding to further appearances alongside shame, Sports Team, Pip Blom and more.
Home Counties have received widespread radio support from Elton John (Apple 1) Jack Saunders, Sian Eleri, Huw Stephens (BBC Radio 1), Steve Lamacq, Amy Lame, Tom Robinson, Radcliffe & Maconie (BBC 6 Music) along with key press tips from The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, NME, Loud And Quiet, So Young Magazine, The Line Of Best Fit, DIY Magazine, CLASH Magazine, Rough Trade, Gigwise, The i, Dork Magazine, The Skinny, Wonderland Magazine, 1883 Magazine, Whynow and more.