HOUM – Land of Joy

Analogue nostalgia meets forward momentum: HOUM and the land of dreams

With ‘Land of Joy’, HOUM cata­pults me straight into a world full of con­trasts. What imme­di­ately catches fire here are these mod­ern, driv­ing beats that take no pris­on­ers. The crisp, con­sist­ent beat strongly reminds me of the Belgian band Ultra Sunn in its uncom­prom­ising style. The whole thing is gar­nished with a good dose of nos­tal­gia: I hear a lot of ana­logue old-school syn­thes­iser sounds here, at least in terms of sound, which give the track a won­der­ful texture.

In terms of con­tent, the track takes us through an onir­ic scen­ario that ulti­mately blurs the line between night­mare and real­ity. Only the vocals need a little work to make them sound more har­mo­ni­ous over­all, but that hardly detracts from the impres­sion – there's a hell of a lot of poten­tial here.

Listen to "HOUM – Land of Joy" on Spotify

Lyrics of "HOUM – Land of Joy"

Lost in the Black
I’m afraid of this town
The wind blows down on me
Knee – deep in mud
Flatworms and pipes
The sign says “Land of Joy”

My home, it’s far
And I’m about to crack
I dig alone
Crawling and fall­ing down

Roaches and flames
I’m star­ing at a light
I open up my mouth
I’m tak­ing the rain
I am the rain
I listen to my void

My woe
My stain
I let them crawl out of me
My blood and my bile
Spill slowly on the ground

I woke up in my bed
Maybe it was just a nightmare
Everything was calm
An unreal silence in my room