A car losing control, hands back on the wheel, then slipping again — that’s the stretch of time Matt Bass ties to the making of “Mirage.” Not as metaphor for drama, but as something lived through while the next Endorphins record slowly took shape.
“MIRAGE,” out April 10th via No Noise Records, is the band’s first new release since 2022’s “Nothing Is Real,” and it sets the tone early. Thick, fuzzed-out guitars push against a detached vocal line, with drums that feel more like impact than rhythm and bass lines that don’t sit still for long. It leans into psychedelic rock, shoegaze, and 90s alternative without settling into any one lane — closer to a blur than a reference point.
Bass sees it as a clear way in. “I think Mirage is a good entry way into the record, it projects the vibe, energy, and lyrical themes of the whole thing pretty well.”
The track will eventually sit inside “Echoes in the Decaying Dream,” a full-length scheduled for September 4th, with a formal announcement planned for late May alongside a second video release. For now, “Mirage” stands on its own, but not as something self-contained. The band has been thinking in fragments.
“Somewhat intentional I’d say,” Bass explains. “I definitely have a zoomed out vision of how I want all our releases to flow with each other. Also kinda thinking and planting seeds to what’s next.”
That idea runs through both the writing and how the band treats each release — less as a finished statement, more like a piece pulled from a longer thread. Even so, Bass still leans toward the album as a full experience. “I’ve always been a big fan of ‘albums’ — I love being immersed in it. I love that feeling when the last song ends. It feels like that’s how music is meant to be ingested. I like when it flows together. I put a lot of thought into the tracklisting and think of the album in sections almost. Sibling songs ect.”
The shift from “Nothing Is Real” to now isn’t framed in sound as much as in how decisions get made. “Nothing Is Real feels like a different lifetime,” he says. “The way we approached that record, the way it was written, our ideas of what we wanted to convey are all just different now.” That album stretched across years — songs written in 2019 after “Dementia Paralytica,” others during COVID, some finished days before recording — capturing what he calls “the chaos of what our mid/late 20’s felt like.” He still stands by it, but the distance is obvious. “I feel a lot more confident in my writing now than I did back then.”
Between that record and this one, things broke apart. Bass lost his mother unexpectedly in fall 2024 — “my biggest supporter and the one who pushed me to embrace a love for music.” Long friendships ended. A relationship collapsed. A founding member left the band. “For a while things really felt like a car losing control, and having to regain control of the wheel over and over again. All the while I was writing this record, and just trying to funnel all the feelings and emotions into something.”
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That pressure sits underneath “Mirage,” but not in a way that reads as collapse. There’s a kind of acceptance built into it. “It’s basically how you described,” he says. “Mirage is a song about embracing the beauty in the unpredictability of life and realizing there’s excitement in the unknown. You can plan for the future, think you know what road you’re on, what direction you’re going in, but a lot of times those ideas turn out to be mirages. And by accepting that and understanding it, there’s a beauty to it.”
Lines like “Can’t decide, immortalized / In the weightlessness this time” and “Frame of mind, mirage of time / Lost inside your spiral eyes” circle that idea without resolving it. The song doesn’t push toward clarity so much as sit inside that instability.
Recording took place with Alex Allinson at The Bridge Sound & Stage in Cambridge, with Carl Saff handling mastering. Bass doesn’t talk about that process in technical terms as much as in terms of trust and space. “Alex is quite literally one of the best people to ever live,” he says. “He co-owns The Bridge, and what that guy contributes to the local ‘scene’ is beyond what I could ever put into words. He becomes the ‘5th’ member of the bands he works with and makes it so incredibly easy to express and massage ideas.”
The band had already worked with him on the previous record, so this time came with familiarity. The studio itself carries weight — tied to the legacy of Fort Apache — but doesn’t feel distant. “That place feels like home and also feels like it’s got a mind of its own. Cool stuff just happens there.” The sessions stayed focused where it mattered. “We were laser focused on this record though, we utilized the time to get the foundations of everything done well, but left plenty of space for all the cool fun stuff.”
The stripped-down, analog-leaning approach follows that same thinking. Less polish, more room for things to shift.
Influences sit close to the surface. Bass traces it back to discovering Nirvana through an MTV News special at ten years old — “it literally changed my world” — opening a path through grunge, then everything around it. Music from home filtered in too: R.E.M., The Cars, The Doors, Bob Dylan, Queen, Led Zeppelin. Later came garage punk and indie from the 2000s and 2010s — Ty Segall, Jay Reatard (Jimmy Lee Lindsey), Oh Sees, Fidlar. “I suppose I’ve tried to throw all that stuff into a blender and see what comes out. But essentially all of it goes back to punk rock.”
That mix lands in an awkward spot live. “We fall into this weird spot where we are either the loudest heaviest band on the bill, or the lightest one. So striking the balance can be tricky sometimes.” The broader Boston/Cambridge scene isn’t making it easier. “There’s so many amazing bands making amazing music but just not a lot of places to play. So many venues have closed… or they won’t gamble on local bills that could flop. Or they are gripped by livenations choke hold.” Practice spaces disappear, replaced by development that doesn’t stick. “They literally knocked down an entire practice facility to build lab space that ended up falling through, so now it’s an empty lot. They also turned Great Scott into a fucking Taco Bell.”
Still, there are bands pushing through. “Miracle Blood is about to shoot to the moon, don’t sleep on those.”
The gap between records stretched longer than planned, slowed by lineup changes and everything else happening around it. There wasn’t much concern about returning with something definitive. “Once I started writing this record, it got to a point where I was like, ‘oh there’s something cohesive here’ and it just kind of came together.” The process still moves in bursts — months of nothing, then multiple songs in a day — often tied to where he’s at mentally. “I definitely find myself writing more when I’m depressed… I find it therapeutic, but maybe I’m just weird.”
Since finishing the record, things have shifted again. “I’ve made a conscious effort to work on my mental and physical health and take time to prioritize the things in my control, and the things that make me happy. And I feel better now than I have in a long time.” Listening back, “Mirage” doesn’t sit still. “I feel like Mirage helps mark that turning point.”
The Endorphins — Matt Bass (vocals/guitar), Austin Wilson (bass), Jeff Walsh (drums), Michael Roberson (guitar) — recorded and mixed “Mirage” with Alex Allinson at The Bridge Sound & Stage in Cambridge, MA, with mastering by Carl Saff at Saff Mastering in Chicago. The music video, directed by Bass, premieres alongside the single, with additional visuals and session photos documented during the recording process.
“MIRAGE” is available now, with the album “Echoes in the Decaying Dream” set for release September 4th.
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