The XCERTS on i think i want to go home now., track-by-track

Tackling the fragility of life head-on, The XCERTS' frontman Murray Macleod says that their new album, i think i want to go home now. "isn't for passive listening. It’s an entire body of work that requires the listeners' time and attention." A deeply emotional record to the band, Macleod talks us through each of its songs, saying "this record is all heart and we want to celebrate that."

do it to myself

There’s a desperate urgency about this song and it proved to be the lightbulb moment in regards to what we wanted the tone of the album to sound like. We can all be our own worst enemy and this song is an admission of my fragility and tendency to self-sabotage when things aren’t good. It’s a hard indie-rock song yet the lyrics and vocal delivery are really vulnerable which makes for a conflicting listen, but that was the intention. The song features the line ‘Will it always be like this?’ which also appears later on in the record. The question represents the anguish and hopelessness we experienced whilst writing and recording the record.

wow

wow was the first song we wrote for the record – it signified to us what makes our band special: the three of us in a room making an emotional racket and feeding off one another’s energy. It made sense to me in terms of the track listing that I'd end 'do it to myself' saying 'There's no-one else that breaks me like I break myself', and follow it up with this kind of black comedy reply. Lyrically, I didn’t want to achieve universal understanding... I’ve missed writing words that are totally up to the listener’s own interpretation.

sinking feeling

Losing someone you love is hard, knowing they are slipping through your fingers whilst still together is even harder. My ex-partner was going through a really difficult time and moved back home to find some inner peace. I felt an immense sense of pride with the awareness and bravery they exhibited in doing so but over the course of a few months I couldn’t escape the feeling things were slowly deteriorating between us. Mike Kerr from Royal Blood helped bring this song to life with me when I was really struggling with my confidence in songwriting so there is a weird swagger about the verses, even though it’s rooted in self-doubt.

bury you

Towards the end of the writing process I was taking stock and I wanted something that had, what's the right way to put it, not a sense of hope, but something that's almost meant to feel like a sobering conversation. I had a lot of those with close friends of mine who were also having tough times during that period so I wanted to have a song that represents tough love. It also acts as a reflective conversation and a statement of intent for myself. 'This ain’t your first rodeo' is a funny line but I’ve found myself saying it a lot and it’s true.

rinse repeat

This might be the first time we’ve self-referenced our own material. There are a lot of parallels between our first record and this record with the heartbreak of a relationship deteriorating and the loss of a parent. We wanted this song to be reminiscent of Crisis in the Slow Lane but from the perspective of adulthood. Sadly cancer was all too prominent in our lives during the writing and recording of this record and this song is very much about my father’s diagnosis at the end of 2022 and the helplessness of it all. I also tend to merge different scenes in verses and tie them together with choruses, so verse two is also about hopelessness but in regards to my then-partner’s struggles.

pretty ugly

A nod to [our 2010 song] Scatterbrain, it's also heavily inspired by UK post-hardcore bands. Lyrically, it's comically brutal; the vocals are borderline incoherent, but that was intentional. An emotion I haven't put in a song for very, very long time is anger and at the time I found myself feeling very angry at the world. This song takes a massive swipe at people who were criticising the band during the time my family was going through what we were going through.

The first verse is about the absurdity and entitlement of certain people who had championed us and then proceeded to mock us online. The second verse is about my father and what he was going through after his cancer diagnosis. In the second verse, I reference the machinery that cut out my dad's tumour. It's called the Da Vinci XI and then I also mention Van Gogh. 'Maybe I'll splatter my brains against the wall / Then you can all dissect the art / I'll do one better than Van Gogh and cut em both off'... It was important to say something a bit left field because that’s what happens when you’re having an internal meltdown. I don't think we've ever sounded this heavy but it was important to represent anger.

dream you in

This song is about the passing of Jordan’s [Smith, bassist] amazing mother – 2025 was truly a horror show for us all. She was a powerhouse of a woman and seeing her in such a fragile state when I first went to visit her in the hospice, there was just that awful conflicting feeling of desperately wanting somebody to just let go in order for the suffering to stop, but the crippling sadness of that person letting go. Dreaming somebody in to preserve their being felt like a sweet sentiment for a nightmarish situation. One good thing that came out of 2025 was Tom and his wife welcomed a baby boy in to the world so we added his voice to the intro of the song which acts as a representation of the cycle of life.

losing it

It's about a period of time when what I deemed as having fun was really escapism in a really not healthy manner. It tackles, head on, the pure anxiety that comes with living like that. I guess it's also about doing wrong when my partner and friends intervened. They said “this isn't good, it's not sustainable” and even though they were being so sweet and understanding, it ultimately fell on deaf ears purely out of fear. I weirdly found comfort in the bad. We recorded the lead vocal on a WhatsApp voice note to give it a sense of closeness and familiarity as if you shouldn’t be hearing something so personal. There’s a real eeriness about it and I like the uncomfortableness.

breathe in what was

I wanted this song to feel like a montage of certain moments in my life... The first verse is about myself and Jordan at 17 when he was a cab driver in Aberdeen. I would call him if I was out and about and he'd take the call. He would pick me up under the guise it was a job and we'd just drive around and listen to this amazing mixtape full of American indie-rock. The second verse is about the first time I met my ex-partner and that instantaneous chemistry. We met when we were teenagers, but didn't get together until 12 years later, but we both remembered seeing one another through the window of a coffee shop in our younger years which is wild. Considering I feel so much on this record, to sing ‘I’d give anything to feel anything at all’ might confuse people, but with an avalanche of despair comes moments of numbness. I like the reminiscent romantic ache of the past coupled with the coldness of the current. Plays out like a movie in my mind.

in your eyes

It was important not to wrap this record up with a sense of realisation, answers or an epiphany. This song is about the loss of what I deemed to be forever love and the cruelty of cancer. The closing lines of the record are ‘This isn’t goodbye / This is I’ll love you forever’, which serves as a full stop but also has an open-ended feel to it. The writing process for this record was agonisingly tough with everything going on and during the making of this song I thought, well, if this is the last song we ever record then that’s the message I want to ring out in Jordan, Tom [Heron, drums] and our fan base’s ears. I’m aware it’s overly sincere but it’s true and the truth is all we wanted to convey on this record. The song and album close with Jordan’s mum blowing a kiss and saying “I love you” which is extremely emotional but it was important for her to close out this record as it belongs to her.

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i think i want to go home now. is out now via FLG
The XCERTS play in-store gigs across the UK this week, including Assai Records Glasgow and Edinburgh on 15 Jul and Assai Records Aberdeen on 16 Jul

thexcertsband.com