Home of the Strange by Young the Giant

Home of the Strange, Young the Giant's third album, arrived on Fueled by Ramen on August 12, 2016, with Jeff Bhasker producing, and it's the Irvine, California band taking on who gets to call themselves American. The songs dig into the members' immigrant family histories and national identity; singer Sameer Gadhia is a first-generation American of Indian descent, and the teaser track "Amerika", released that April, took its cue from Franz Kafka's unfinished novel of the same name.

Gadhia is out front, Jacob Tilley and Eric Cannata on guitars, Payam Doostzadeh on bass and François Comtois on drums, and they sound bigger and brighter than before, indie rock built for wide rooms, with the choruses pushed as high as they'll go. "Something to Believe In" was the first radio single and a fair calling card: earnest, anthemic and in no hurry to sound cool. Reviews were mostly warm, with Entertainment Weekly hearing the band's richest, most varied work yet.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.