Half Built Homes Dreams CD
HALF BUILT HOMES has been a band for a while, with a good chunk of releases going back at least five years. Simply put, this is the only way that an Oi! punk band from the petri dish of Northern Indiana, contaminated by Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois, is supposed to sound. They have just enough musicianship to keep it interesting, but then fuck it up the exact perfect way that the Middle West does every time. It has all the Oi! and sing-along punk stuff, but with Eeyore cloudy days that only Lake Michigan can bring in. Perfect NAKED RAYGUN bits, KRABS parts, tied up in a nicely sorrowful upbeat-tempo kinda way. I live in Michigan and I consider these people to be neighbors of sorts, and by the end of the seventh song on the CD, gosh, are we really this fucked-up here? I mean, I still swim as often as I can, have my laughs with pals, and although I’ve been through a fair amount of stuff, this HALF BUILT HOMES cloud cover is bumming me out. OFF WITH THEIR HEADS plops into this category of melancholy, singable tunes, and although this is a great record, I’m tired of hearing hopeless Midwest songs about maybe trying to be better. This album bends you around a couple corners, as it starts out as a boot-stomper then becoming sad about old friends passing away, the sunrise/sunset thing. The last track reminded me of a pal that died, and although I told him that I loved him every time I saw him, the song reminded me that maybe I don’t say it often enough or to more people or something. In the best and worst ways, this Dreams CD by HALF BUILT HOMES is wonderfully Midwest pop punk/Oi! punk.
