Sent fear with the others
Laced with your lies
Concealed by another
But you’ve forgotten just why
There’s a moment in House of Harm’s new single, Carousel, where time seems to stretch thin, like aging film stock or breath held too long. The Boston-based trio, long masters of blurred edges and clean wounds, return with something both direct and elusive: a song that moves in circles but never settles.
“Carousel is about emotional loops,” explains vocalist Michael Rocheford, “how we keep spinning through the same moments, even as everything around us changes. It’s the feeling of disorientation when you want to move forward but can’t stop looking back.”
His voice reports with the calm of someone too tired to be surprised anymore. The lyrics trace a path lined with broken promises and unfinished sentences, where betrayal is less an event and more a state of being. Longing persists like smoke in a closed room, thick and directionless.
The music builds slowly, deliberate and unflinching, shaped by the same DNA that links The Church’s shimmer, The The’s steady gloom, and The Cure’s crystalline ache. But House of Harm never aim for imitation; they stay within reach of silence, letting space do as much as sound. Guitar lines quiver and hold. Drums snap like memory resurfacing without warning. It’s less a ballad than a slow, controlled collapse. Carousel isn’t about closure. It doesn’t point forward, or even backward. It spins…gracefully, grimly, through the kind of recollection you don’t invite, but can’t quite shake. And in that motion, House of Harm finds something close to the truth.
Caroline Bailey’s video amplifies that tension with surreal restraint. The band performs under an indifferent spotlight, surrounded by dust and distance. There’s a strange geometry to the space: corners that shouldn’t meet, shadows that move like they’ve made other plans. Somewhere between Lynchian dream logic and post-industrial purgatory, reality warps just enough to feel familiar…somewhere in a realm between Field of Dreams and Children of the Corn.
Watch the video for “Carousel” below:
Listen to Carousel below and order the single here.
House of Harm’s upcoming tour will span both coasts, hitting new cities and marking their highly anticipated Canadian debut, along with appearances at Chicago’s Cold Waves and Florida’s Absolution Festival. This follows a breakout year for the band, including support slots with Twin Tribes and post-punk legends The Chameleons in their hometown of Boston, plus a successful UK and EU headline run in Winter 2024.
Get tickets here.
House of Harm – At Last ’25 + ’26 Tour
- Sep 21 – Montreal, QC
- Sep 22 – Toronto, ON
- Sep 23 – Cleveland, OH
- Sep 24 – Chicago, IL
- Sep 25 – Milwaukee, WI
- Sep 26 – Minneapolis, MN
- Sep 27 – Omaha, NE
- Sep 28 – Kansas City, MO
- Sep 30 – Indianapolis, IN
- Oct 1 – Birmingham, AL
- Oct 2 – Tampa, FL
- Oct 3 – Atlanta, GA
- Oct 6 – Pittsburgh, PA
- Oct 7 – Baltimore, MD
- Oct 9 – New York, NY
- Dec 1 – Seattle, WA
- Dec 2 – Portland, OR
- Dec 3 – San Francisco, CA
- Dec 4 – Los Angeles, CA
- Dec 6 – Phoenix, AZ
- Dec 7 – Las Vegas, NV
- Dec 8 – Salt Lake City, UT
- Dec 9 – Denver, CO
- Dec 18 – Boston, MA
- Jan 15 – Houston, TX
- Jan 16 – McAllen, TX
- Jan 17 – San Antonio, TX
- Jan 18 – Dallas, TX
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