The Long Way Home's red and raw "Throat Rot" from the "As Usual" EP

The Long Way Home is a post punk / punk band based out of Annandale On Hudson, New York and Throat Rot from their "As Usual" EP (2019) seems particularly relevant to me as I have been battling a gnarly throat situation after a business trip (damn circulating crappy air on planes) and while the pulsating fusing of blues rock and punk tones on Throat Rot with the bad ass guitar and Emily Tomasi's strident smirking vocals "I get sick when I'm in a bad mental state, look at my mouth and see the mess that you made" and "I'm living in my own rot" might have more to do with relationships that go bad (putridly so). I can relate. Of the track, Tomasi offers: "I got really gnarly pneumonia coincidentally after a betrayal from a friend; this song's about that! I've always loved old country and blues music so I wanted to take that love and channel it into punk instrumentals."

The punk rock here is spartan and cleanly cut and Tomasi who shares vocal duties with Jeremy Coppola (who seems to be the main lead vocalist on the EP) has a lot of character to her voice, to her tortured wail. Other Coppola voiced tracks like Pretty Little People and Martyr Complex feels like touches of prog rock stirred into proto punk sounds with an askew sense of composition and acerbic thoughts (and humor) in between the lines. Love the leaning to classic proto punk distilled post punk but served in their own unique way. Me likee. 

The Long Way Home is: Jeremy Coppola (guitar, vox), Emily Tomasi (bass, vox) and Jacob Cummings (drums, moral support).

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Robb Donker

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

One winter night in 2015, new friends Jeremy and Emily started talking about how much they love playing music and were both looking for people to start a band with. The conversation went nowhere because Emily was too shy to take it further and Jeremy thought he had a bassist but it turned out the guy didn’t know how to play the bass, he just owned one.

Months later, they returned to the topic and decided playing music together would be a pretty great idea, and thus The Long Way Home was born.

They were introduced to Jacob in 2017, who brought a ray of West Coast sunshine into their music, which previously had a level of angst only achievable by living in states that actually get cold.

With music that can only be described as “well at least they have personality”, the members of The Long Way Home pride themselves on their high energy live performances and taking influence from a wide range of music.