Anxious are moving forward, but they’re not leaving anything behind. Their new album, Bambi, set for release on February 21 via Run For Cover Records, is a documentation of personal and musical shifts. It’s an album shaped by the grind of the road, the weight of expectations, and the inevitable fractures that form when trying to hold onto youth while stepping into something bigger.
Ahead of the album’s release, the Connecticut band has shared Bambi’s opener, “Never Said,” a track that doesn’t waste time setting the tone. Built around a constantly evolving riff, the song finds vocalist Grady Allen cutting through the passive-aggressive social games that too often define underground music circles. “In our music subculture, there often seems to be this dynamic where people stay close to others regardless of the fact of whether they really like them or not. You hear subtle whispers and rumors about what people really think of you, but those feelings are never expressed to you directly,” Allen explains. “It’s an exhausting social dynamic and one that I am desperate to let go of.”
The track itself emerged in a way that mirrored its themes—slowly, over time, in fragments that only later became something whole. “The song came about super weirdly and indirectly,” Allen recalls. “I went over to Dante’s house last winter and we just started shooting this riff back and forth. We started frankenstein-ing new parts onto it over several months and eventually it just sort of fell into what it was.”
Produced, engineered, and mixed by Brett Romnes (The Movielife, Front Bottoms, Oso Oso) at The Barber Shop Studios, Bambi is a leap forward. Where Little Green House was rooted in hardcore and emo, Bambi pulls from a wider spectrum of influences, pulling in 90s alt-rock textures and intricate vocal harmonies. The album holds onto the intensity of their past but broadens the emotional and musical palette.
If there’s an overarching theme to Bambi, it’s the tension between forward motion and nostalgia.
Allen, guitarist/co-vocalist Dante Melucci, drummer Jonny Camner, bassist Sam Allen, and guitarist Tommy Harte have spent years on the road since their debut. The reality of that lifestyle—constantly moving, missing out on relationships, wondering if it’s sustainable—looms over the record.
“I started exploring what it would look like to finish college,” Allen admits. “I looked at the whole thing through this very binary lens: I could either do the band or go back to school. So when I unveiled everything to the guys I think everyone perceived it as ‘Well, Grady is just leaving.’ I think I probably thought about it that way, too.” That uncertainty caused a rift, and for a time, the future of Anxious wasn’t clear. But instead of falling apart, they turned that unease into the foundation of Bambi.
That perspective shift informs songs like “Counting Sheep,” where airy falsetto melodies crash into jagged guitars, or “Head & Spine,” which weaves together 90s alt-rock hooks and a raw vulnerability that’s always been central to Anxious’ songwriting. Elsewhere, “Sunder” and “Tell Me Why” tap into frustration and disillusionment with a subculture that’s supposed to be a refuge but often falls into the same traps as the mainstream.
The title Bambi comes from a joke-turned-revelation.
“We should have named the band Bambi,” Allen once admitted to his bandmates in a hotel room. The name stuck, first as a passing thought, then as a concept that defined the record. “Bambi is the band we could have been, that I want us to be—and I think the record is that.”
That reinvention meant pushing themselves in new ways. The band aimed to reconnect with the creative spark they had when writing Little Green House, working in the same basement where they started. But it wasn’t until they entered the studio with Romnes that everything came into focus. “He just did a fantastic job challenging us and pushing our ideas into a whole new echelon,” Allen says.
The results are clear from the opening notes of “Never Said.” It starts off controlled, almost restrained, before exploding into a layered, aggressive hook. The song cycles through sections with surgical precision, refusing to settle into any one shape for too long. Allen’s voice shifts between melody and grit, frustration and resignation.
ANXIOUS live:
02/20 New York, NY @ Rough Trade NYC (in-store)
03/11 Philadelphia, PA @ Ukie Club *
03/12 Washington, DC @ Songbyrd *
03/13 Richmond, VA @ Richmond Music Hall *
03/14 Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle *
03/15 Atlanta, GA @ Aisle 5 *
03/16 Nashville, TN @ Drkmttr *
03/18 Dallas, TX @ Club Dada *
03/19 Austin, TX @ Empire Control Room *
03/21 Phoenix, AZ @ The Rebel Lounge *
03/22 San Diego, CA @ Voodoo Room *
03/23 Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex *
03/25 San Francisco, CA @ Brick & Mortar
03/28 Portland, OR @ Polaris Hall *
03/29 Seattle, WA @ Madam Lou’s *
03/31 Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court *
04/02 Denver, CO @ Globe Hall *
04/05 Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St Entry *
04/06 Chicago, IL @ Cobra Lounge *
04/07 Hamtramck, MI @ Sanctuary Detroit *
04/08 Lakewood, OH @ Mahall’s *
04/10 New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom *
04/11 Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair *
* w/ Ultra Q, Stateside
