Home At Last Breaks "Radio Silence"

After nearly a decade out of the public eye, the South Jersey/Philadelphia area rock band HOME AT LAST are back with some brand new music. True to form, their new CD Radio Silence (released wordwide via CD Baby.com and I-Tunes.com on the indie Smiling Moose Recordings label, catalog #SMCDR-20061-2) is chock full of intelligently constructed and highly listenable tunes alternating with a few more adventurous exploratory pieces in keeping with the progressive muse of their alter ego. As long-time Philadelphia session keyboardist Cotton Kent says of HOME AT LAST, “They aren't four guys in a garage any longer… [and they’re] capable of any style of music short of bebop or Renaissance plainsong.”

HOME AT LAST was first formed over two decades ago when guitarist Ernie Trionfo, bassist Bruce Pike, and drummer Charlie Andaloro each strayed from different bands to form a kind of local “supergroup” of players. When guitarist Steve Shurman joined the team a bit later, the lineup was complete, and the band quickly began pulling off musical moves as muscular as anything commercial radio has ever had to offer. With a nearly endless series of gigs in both “name” and “not-so-name” venues from 1987-2001 the band attained a kind of a “cult” status in the area, regularly garnering good reviews in the local music press, winning several awards, and releasing three full-length CDs along the way.

Thus it’s not surprising that on Radio Silence, HOME AT LAST produces the sounds of a well-seasoned band: syncopated rhythms, interlocking and dueling guitars, and complex harmonies. In the main, the group’s sound continues to rely upon Pike’s clear pop voice riding atop the exceptionally agile guitar playing of Trionfo and Shurman, whose combined sounds are made up of equal parts Robert Fripp (King Crimson), Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, and Andy Partridge (XTC). The rhythmic foundation for all that is built upon Andaloro’s beefy and highly controlled percussion, and driven throughout by Pike’s Chris Squire-ish bass lines.

What’s new for HOME AT LAST on Radio Silence is that their customary signature guitar lines, power pop hooks, and block vocal harmonies are now supplemented with a whole cadre of new sounds: Pike’s lush keyboard treatments, Shurman’s MIDI and synth guitar sonics, and Andaloro’s work on electronic percussion. The selections on Radio Silence range from outright rock ("When Your Time Will Come") to Beatle-like melody and lyrics ("So I Disappear") all the way to an impressive cover of the avant-garde King Crimson instrumental “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part Two.” Recorded, mixed, and mastered entirely digitally, and produced by the band at their digital recording facility in Landisville, New Jersey, Radio Silence is a heady mix that’s as contemporary as rock gets while still being firmly anchored in the “classic rock” tradition.

The Official Home At Last website: www.freewebs.com/halband

My Space HAL website: www.myspace.com/halbandnj

CD Baby’s HAL page: http://cdbaby.com/cd/hatlast

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Home At Last/Smiling Moose Music
207 Main Street, Cedarville, NJ 08311 USA
email: bnjp@juno.com
phone: 856-447-0293