Scott Celani and his eponymous band have made some powerful melodies in the past, but in his new single “Home,” Celani arguably pushes himself harder than he ever has before. With his sharp lyrical wit to lead the way, the veteran singer and songwriter approaches this latest release with a somewhat liberal demeanor from an aesthetical point of view, but this isn’t to suggest that the resulting melodicism is anything less than the efficient beast it has been in his most well-recognized work. Celani is a force to be reckoned with in “Home,” and if you don’t believe me, take a listen of the song for yourself this February.
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There’s a lot of great tonality worth marveling over in this track, particularly in the string section. The resonating harmony between the guitar parts and the vocal tends to draw the greatest reaction from both pop and rock fans alike, while the beats are consistently as churning and engrossing as the melodic elements in the song are. This isn’t an easy balance to strike from behind the soundboard, but nevertheless, Celani and his band manage to make it sound and look all too easy in this particular recording.
As previously noted, the lyrics in “Home” are noticeably more cutting and anti-synthetic than many of the other songs making waves in the American underground have been this season, but I wouldn’t say that they represent a stylistic nor creative departure from what the Scott Celani Band’s longtime fans have come to expect from their work together. This is singer/songwriter who has a lot to get off his chest here, and although he’s never been one to shy away from expressing himself in the past, this is probably one of the most exposed looks he’s given up to the public in a single in his career thus far.
The instrumental hook is the main attraction in the chorus of “Home,” but I don’t think that it overshadows the vocal for a minute. There’s simply too much emotion, too much raw, unvarnished passion coming from Celani’s serenade for us to dismiss his singing as anything other than the compositional linchpin it inarguably is. He isn’t stealing all of the spotlight away from his supporting players, but regardless of who is in the backing band, this is one artist who has a way of commanding most all of the attention in a room during any given performance (studio recordings included).
SPOTIFY: open.spotify.com/album/2qrAf2a0xFnx01tHG0GIfu
He might be seven records deep into his career, but that doesn’t mean Scott Celani isn’t rolling with the best in the game to this day and sounding like a true pop hero in songs like this one. “Home” isn’t so much a revolution in his sound as it is a reminder to us of who he truly is as an artist, and more specifically, as a songwriter constantly developing his technique to better access the masses around him. This is one of his group’s best works yet, and I can’t imagine I’m the first critic to say so.
Clay Burton