I love an artist with confidence and a vision and I get it in spades with London based Emegency Break. New single Hometown jumps out of the speakers and fair slaps you around the face.

There’s a lot to admire in Emergency Break. From having a strong image (wearing school uniform both accentuates their youthful energy and plants them in the mind) and with a track like new single Hometown, there’s a strong sense of theatre. This is a song with a huge identity and meaning, and it is presented with a rare passion.

As a result, for me the track echoes back to massive showmen like Brian Molko (Placebo), Alice Cooper, and dare I name check Bowie. Young vocalist Leo Gerchen has one of those instantly recognisable and striking types of vocals. Lucky lucky chap. Gerchen himself name checked Bowie, Jacob Slater (Wunderhorse), Jeff Buckley and Van McCann when we had a chat, which gives a great feel for his influences.

If that isn’t enough, the backing to those vocals are huge. I love the hook riffs which the band return to at a number of phases, and the frantic melt down stage of the tune.

Hometown is inspired from Gerchen moving to New York for a year and being isolated from his old life and friends, missing them and wondering what they are doing. An entirely relatable wrench and detachment that most of us go through at various stages in our lives, and captured perfectly here.

The world of music is fickle, but on the basis of Hometown – strong vocals, a huge tune, a totally relatable connection to the audience, Emergency Break certainly have the full kit of tools at their disposal to break into the top of that world. It’s not so often I get really really excited about a song and a new (to me) band, but here we are.

Emergency Break have a live gig coming up in their London hometown (see what I did there) at the legendary Grace on 10 January 2025. There’s also an impressive film showing the guts of the band available to view on their You Tube channel.

* words by tiggerligger

* images the band’s own