Finding Home Through Noise

Corbin Hawkins

”This album makes me want to get out and have experiences and ... just live life for what it is and what it can be,'' reads a YouTube comment on the album, These Four Walls by We Were Promised Jetpacks. Personally, this album makes me want to do the exact opposite: curl up at home with a warm blanket on a brisk October evening, enjoy a cup of tea, and take in the scenery of the autumn trees.

It takes a special type of album to create such intense experiences. And that is what music is all about—for me anyway, taking you somewhere you wish you were or directing your emotions into places you didn’t know were possible. In particular, the feeling of being safe—being home.

These Four Walls is one of the only albums I have come across in my 18 years of breathing that has given me such an intense feeling of home. 11 songs compiled for a total of 49 minutes and 36 seconds of euphoria. And I really do mean it, I am so genuinely happy while experiencing the album, and it never gets old. If I am feeling particularly homesick or just need a pick-me-up, I’ll have a listen through and absorb the warm embrace that it offers.

But what is it about this album that makes it so special? For many it may sound like any other collection of songs (which I sincerely hope is not the case, and hopefully I can persuade you if so), and every listener forms their own relationship with an album, but there are a combination of so many factors that allow this album to consistently occupy a spot on the “go-to” list.

For one, the artwork is brilliant. In fact, it is one of my favourite covers ever, and this is not my first time writing about my love for it. The depiction of what seems to be an abandoned home in Scotland is so simple, yet it is able to instil a plethora of mixed emotions including warmth, loneliness, apprehensiveness, sentiment, and an entire palette of others.

Perhaps it is something about the thick Scottish accent of singer, Adam Thompson, that just makes you want to give him a big bear hug. Pitchfork gives a perfectly accurate description, saying, “If an American band gave us a track like "It's Thunder and It's Lightning", with its earnestly soaring melody that explodes out from an insistent strum, it would come off as gratingly emo”. But WWPJ completely transforms the essence of the album in the vocals alone. On top of this, the skilled musicianship and use of unorthodox instruments, such as a glockenspiel, underneath the post-punk forefront separates the sound from the typical 4-piece band dynamic.

So I encourage you to have a listen. Form your own relationship with these songs. Dance to them, cry to them, sing to them, tell someone you love them with them, or take my advice and cuddle up with a blanket and just listen. Whatever it may be, I hope that you find joy in the album as much as I do.