New Music: Midnight Housework – The Freedom Door

With their debut EP out next month, Belfast’s Midnight Housework have shared the melodic and textured tones of The Freedom Door.

The band say they hadn’t intended to release the track as a single, but seeing the audience reaction at gigs and then laying the song down in the studio during EP sessions caused them to reconsider.

We should be glad that they did: the band cites math and alt rock as being major influences on the track, and that is easily found in the tight tempo. Also noticeable, and part of the song’s inner strengths, is the way it connects to a particular strain of indie rock. It’s not a nostalgic number, but I got echoes of where the jangle of Aztec Camera and the introspective lushness of Prefab Sprout were finding mainstream appeal for their cleverly constructed arrangements and densely interconnected lyrics.

I’m not saying The Freedom Door is esoteric, more than it follows in the traditions of acts like those two, and Deacon Blue at their pop peak. I realise there is a lot of the past in my comments, but that is where the song takes me, an era when thoughtful indie ruled the charts. More current references would be The Twilight Sad and We Were Promised Jetpacks – anthemic and artful – and that is also an indication of what Midnight Housework could achieve in the future.

“At the centre of it is a simple idea,” the band disclosed. “Feeling trapped is one thing. Finding the courage to leave is another. The song explores escape, fear and the process of moving forward, ultimately landing somewhere hopeful. It doesn’t pretend that walking through the door is easy. It suggests that sometimes you just have to be brave enough to do it.”

Get all the latest band and EP news by connecting with Midnight Housework on Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook. The Freedom Door can be streamed on SoundCloud, Spotify, and YouTube.