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Hello and thanks for reading. Today I am writing about HEIMAT-LOS. While it seems most of my friends have known this band for ages, they are a recent discovery for me. Technically I had heard them when we had the reissue of Rapsodie En France Vol. 1. I listened to that compilation non-stop when it was reissued, but I did not remember HEIMAT-LOS at all when their name came back into my life. FINAL BLAST was the only band I knew at the time from the compilation. I could be forgetting someone, but FINAL BLAST was probably the first French band I really heard. It was yet another discovery thanks to the Hardy Boys, on yet another drunken night where Michael DJ’d records loud as fuck til like 3AM. He put on their split with RAPT at some point, and their side immediately stood out to me. I still think that side of their split is absolutely perfect. Again, I had never heard French punk before, so it was cool to hear the heavy UK82 sound in there. Going back to HEIMAT-LOS, one thing that really got me hooked on their sound is how they can be so anthemic yet so fuckin’ hard at the same time. I wonder if they were influenced more by UK82 or Oi! bands… at times that is splitting hairs though, haha. I still don’t know much French punk/hardcore, but all the bands I’ve heard seem pretty rooted in that anthemic sound, or they are noisy as fuck and fast. I was trying to remember how or why I started checking out HEIMAT-LOS, cos usually someone or something has guided me into a new band or album and I have been playing their stuff non-stop for like a year now. Then I remembered, it was something that happened SCARECROW played in Paris last year on tour, haha. At the time, the name HEMIAT-LOS didn’t mean shit to me, so this encounter was way more exciting to Daniel and Jeff. We showed up early to the gig (for once), and we were looking for a place to turn around and park. Due to some tricky maneuvering in the busy and aggressive as hell French streets, we ended up backing into someone’s car. The owner of the car was sitting in the car when we hit them, and she immediately got pretty frantic. This person, like 90% of the people we encountered in France, did not speak any English. As you can imagine, this made the situation even more stressful. Eventually a guy associated with the venue or gig came over and translated between our driver and the woman. Things calmed down a bit, and they came over to the bar to share some wine and do (what I assumed was) insurance paperwork about the incident. Before they headed over to the bar, there was some type of conversation with the woman, Jeff, and Daniel. I think she realized we were a hardcore band or something, and mentioned that her husband used to play in a hardcore band from Paris... and that band was HEIMAT-LOS. What a small world, haha. Since we’ve returned from tour, HEIMAT-LOS has been a constant go to for me and I have slowly been securing copies of their releases. It’s hilarious they have two splits with KROMOZOM 4. Fortunately, their records are not ridiculously expensive, so they have been fairly easy to cross off my want list (with the help of some good mates overseas). Alright that’s about it for today. I’m sorry for not writing about anything new, but maybe my little story was worthwhile. If you didn’t grab that Rapsodie En France compilation when we had them, you can still find copies in USA here. It’s an excellent compilation, and it comes with a sick booklet. And of course, if you don’t know HEIMAT-LOS, I would check them out. Thanks for reading!