Weekend Round Up: New Releases From Beach Bunny, AJR, and War Is Over
Miss us? We’re taking a break and cooking up a brand new season of Rhapsody in Reverie for you! But until that magical day when we return to the podcasting airwaves, we couldn’t resist talking music shop with the world. We’re sharing a few of the new songs that came out this past weekend that we couldn’t get enough of! Read on below to hear some of co-host Katarina’s favorites of the moment!
Honeymoon by Beach Bunny
This past Valentine’s Day weekend wasn’t anything special for me. I’m currently single and I’m not really looking, as I’m planning on making a move up the East Coast before the year is out. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t feel like cranking up my stereo for some quality tunes, and boy did I get a treat. Rock-n-roll band Beach Bunny, led by singer/songwriter Lili Trifilio, released their debut album Honeymoon, just in time for me to jam out to some of the most relatable relationship songs I’ve listened to in a while. Relationship anthems are always tricky because there’s a fine line you have to balance between being saccharine and sweet, as well as playfully petulant and just plain bratty. On Honeymoon, Trifilio showcases just how good a songwriter she is with the joyful “Dream Boy,” an ode to young Summer love that made me want to dance all weekend long. She also released the fabulous “Cuffing Season”, a song that really resonated with my fear of being alone while also being tied down too quickly in a budding relationship. She gets it. Beach Bunny really captured all the ups and downs of love in a bottle, just in time for me to take advantage of discount chocolate day.
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“Think About You” by War Is Over
Love seems to be the theme for me this Valentine’s Day Weekend, or rather the sadness of love newly ended. Folk/Indie Pop duo War is Over released a new single over the weekend, the mournful but slightly upbeat “Think About You.” Cameron Young and Brycen Waitkus pull out all the stops on this track about a relationship ending, with all the hallmarks of good indie-folk instrumentation: thumping drums, some quality steel-string, even a tambourine makes an appearance. And of course, the lyrics are poetry: “I found your favorite sweater/It had fallen off the rack/And was laying on my floor/But with the warmer weather/I guess you won't be coming back/To get it off o' my back door.” It’s the simple reminders, like finding lost clothing, that make the end sink in.
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“Bang!” by AJR
Thankfully, my weekend wasn’t all about the glories and tragedies of Love. It also featured an absolute bop of an existential crisis. AJR is one of my favorite bands because they never fail to articulate exactly what I’m feeling in a way that really gets my blood pumping. They are, in my opinion, one of the most interesting bands out there. “Bang!” starts off relatively slow, with a piano intro that makes me think almost of a cabaret. It slides gracefully into a chorus that has me bobbing my head and ramping up my anxiety. It’s so odd that this song has been released as I’ve been making preparations to leave my home state, to venture off into the ~adult~ world, where I will no doubt be scraping by for quite some time. Anxiety over impending adulthood is a common theme in AJR’s music, as it featured heavily in their album Neotheater. However, “Bang!” feels much more sinister, not quite defeated but decidedly more cynical. It’s the, “alright, I’ve done it. I’ve moved away from home. I’m living my life. I’m not sure this fixed me, though.” I can’t help but feel a little comforted that they seem to be singing songs that perfectly echo my own doubts and fears. On a lighter note, I’m always going to be impressed by how they mix their tracks of course: nowhere else could I find a band that sampled Charlie Pellet, the announcer for the NYC Subway system. This song is going to be blasting from my speakers for quite a while.
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