Coming Home' Single Review
First Time Flyers release new music as they make their Main Stage debut at Long Road Festival
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Nikki Blackburn
August 28th 2026
There seems to be a lot of serendipity surrounding First Time Flyers’ new single, ‘Coming Home’. Not only are they releasing it on the same day Little Big Town release their brand-new album — and First Time Flyers are arguably the UK’s very own version of Little Big Town, looking set to carve out a career with the same longevity — but they’re also releasing it the day before they play The Long Road Festival for the fourth consecutive year, an achievement very few, if any, other artists are able to claim.
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This year, they’ll also take to the Main Stage for the very first time, showcasing not only how far they’ve come as a band in the three years since forming, but just how much they’ve grown along the way. And ‘Coming Home’ feels like the perfect soundtrack to that journey. Much like the band themselves, there’s a real sense of joy running through this song. Tim, Poppy, Vicki and Jake have always had that knack for combining the warmth and familiarity of country music with the big, soaring harmonies that have become such a defining part of their sound, but there’s something different about ‘Coming Home’. It feels alive. Sonically, it also feels like their most 'country' song yet too.
It’s upbeat, uplifting and incredibly easy to get swept up in, but there’s genuine substance underneath all that feel-good energy. Speaking about the single, Poppy said: 'this song feels like such joy to us; it's so full of life, and stories and our personal journeys, and it's all about following your heart and embracing all the twists and turns that life leads you down and realising that sometimes you have to leave a place in order to understand where you belong.'
And that message feels particularly fitting for First Time Flyers themselves.
First Time Flyers return to The Long Road Festival for their 4th consecutive year in 2026.
There’s something beautifully full-circle about hearing a band sing about finding your way home while watching them continue to find their own place within the UK country music scene. Three years after forming: with a #1 debut album, four consecutive appearances at The Long Road and now a first outing on the festival’s Main Stage later — they’ve already come a long way in a relatively short space of time, and that deserves to be celebrated, and 'Coming Home' does just that.
Musically, it feels tailor-made for a Long Road festival crowd; anyone present for their Front Porch set last year will already be excited, and rightly so; the harmonies are gorgeous, but the arrangement still allows space for each member to shine individually before building towards a stunning crescendo, and there’s such an infectious quality throughout that demands that you sing along. But it never feels like these guys are chasing a big festival moment purely for the sake of it. It feels natural, it feels authentic, and that’s perhaps the biggest strength of this song. There’s a confidence here, but not an arrogance; more a sense that First Time Flyers know exactly who they are and that they're thoroughly enjoying the journey they're on. The level of confidence and joy of a band who will jump out of a van during a traffic jam to pass out flyers and film a cheeky TikTok. That same level of joy and confidence comes through in every note of ‘Coming Home’ and it's an absolute treat to hear it.
If the ambition is to build the kind of enduring career that Little Big Town have enjoyed, then songs like this certainly suggest they’re heading in the right direction as they move into their next era of music following last September's excellent #1 debut album 'Bound to Break,' but rather than sounding like a band trying to prove that they belong, ‘Coming Home’ sounds like a band who already know that they do ...not that any of them would admit that ...except for maybe Vicki lol; she'd definitely be the first to tell you this one's a banger, and she'd be right.
'Coming Home' is available everywhere now via Lookout Mountain Records.
Watch our post-Highways Festival interview with FTF below.
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First Time Flyers were our guests on the first episode of our podcast, The Dirt Road Diaries Podcast, which is available on YouTube and wherever you stream your podcasts. Watch our chat below focused on that #1 album, 'Bound to Break'
Keep up with First Time Flyers socials below:
