‘A Petty Song’ charges headlong at the strangeness of life in the 21st century, sitting on a knife edge of viewpoints. Is the world slowly sinking into a landfill of meaningless nonsense? Is the entire population becoming what the song describes as “a generation of culturally inferior types”? Or is that just a defence mechanism? Snobbery we coat our lives in to try to feel somehow better than everyone else? Whatever the answer, the track has some pretty cool verses, almost reminiscent of Alexandra Kleeman’s You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine. Take, for example, the opening verse:

“We roam around department stores
Searching for things we can’t afford.
Getting lost in a world of cultural beigeness
And other futile things like avocado holders”

‘TV Routines’ and ‘Megabus’ are ironic and funny but bathed in a persistent melancholy that the smirks can’t quite shake. “My best friend is called Megabus,” Watson sings on the latter with disarming sincerity, “He texts me all the time / Even though they’re always just a bunch of digits and letters / intertwined.” Following jabs at the rival coach service competitors (“Fuck you National Express / For your unequivocally, awful service”) the song falls into a a sadder place, the vocals pleading for reprieve from a fast-approaching future.

‘Constantly Ignored’, which opens with a quote from Portlandia to sum up the Exam Season vibe, sounds like the lonely echoes of a disillusioned cynic, his thoughts rattling around inside the blank vacuum which belies the superficial skin of mass media. The title track closes things with more nostalgia and sadness, the only two emotions left standing as the technology-induced razing continues unabated:

“We’re swiftly approaching a great sense of numbness everyday,
Colour has leaked from the walls to reveal a desolate grey.
I cling onto hope that something at the shady bower might change,
Still I’ve got no desire to leave, and no desire to stay.

I call it home.
It’s all I’ve ever known”

With its references to Eggheads and Flog It! and headers & volleys, Mostly Homely is a delightfully British record addressing an unquestionably global malaise. It’s music for those of us who spent our youth swapping Merlin stickers and naively thinking life could only get better and more meaningful, only to find ourselves over-educated and unemployed and wondering if this is really all there is. You can buy it now from the Exam Season Bandcamp page.

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