JW Francis has had an interesting life before his music career. He was born in Oklahoma, lived in Paris, New York and is now a recent signing to Sunday Best Recordings. He delightfully refers to himself as ‘bedroom pop’, and there is a complete innocence to his music and production that really appealed to me. 

The whole track of Going home to a party is somewhat hard to take seriously, but I think this is the vibe the indie/pop artist is heading for. The video to this would also reinforce that message. With comical dancing and a quite simple way of filming the visual to support his narrative. Nevertheless, it is a song that is not without elements of complexity and good songwriting. 

With the instrumentation in Going home to a party, I’m intrigued as to why J W Francis chose what he did. There are two guitars, a bass, drums and two distinct synth sounds and it’s the latter that give the song the uniqueness. The synths are both high in the mix and they provide a backing feel to the flow of the lyrics and I think set the tone of the song. There are some nice chord changes that the guitars glide through that enable the melody to have a really catchy feel. The speeding tempo of the vocals during the chorus section is effective and provides an air of complexity. Overall, this is a quirky song that made me want to find out more about JW Francis. The song and the video made me smile, which is surely the sign of something to share! 

Author: Phil Arnold

Phil Arnold is a musician, producer and music reviewer from Devon, in the South West of England. Whilst not writing music reviews, Phil also writes and records under the name of Ugbrooke.