Brighten The Corners Presents post-punk band Home Counties at The Smokehouse on Tuesday 28th January for Independent Venue Week 2025!

Home Counties always manage to balance the duality of lyrical frankness and musical buoyancy with gusto. With an eye for the day-to-day, all-too-relatable details of crap modern living, yet – coupled with an ear for hook-filled, grin-inducing melodies – the pay-off is one riddled in joy rather than despair.

When disenchantment runs high, when city life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be — when you’re forking out seven quid for a pint, shivering in a queue for a club night you don’t really care about, getting ripped off by landlords over blu tac stains, and squeezing in studio sessions around a relentless 9-5 schedule, there is only one logical response: fun.

That’s exactly what Home Counties provide on their debut album, Exactly As It Seems. A newly-purchased synthesiser, a fresh outlook, and a steady diet of early 2000s pop kicked open a world of melodic possibility for the band, resulting in an album that’s upbeat from start to finish: swapping wry social commentary for personal experience and big tunes.