Hailing from Philadelphia, Booze Radly (featured in our 2022 piece 32 DIY COVID-era Discoveries in alt punk) is an indie emo band consisting of five members: Alex Manescu, Dylan Molloy, Vince Dejesus, Youssef Moussa, and Peter Sovia. Since their formation in late 2013, the band has played over fifty live shows and released eight singles, as well as six albums.
Their new EP, “Lose, Badly,” featuring a blend of pop-punk, emo, surf rock, and skramz across six tracks, is out today, both on cassette through Lonely Ghost Records and on streaming services.
As a special treat, we have collaborated with the band to provide a track-by-track breakdown of every song on the EP. Check it out below.
White Guy Emo Ft. Gabby Relos
This song was an attempt at the time-honored tradition in emo of self-deprecation. I wanted something to drop kick the ep open that could also explore self-reflexively addressing rote cliches in emo music. I’m sure I’ll revisit the well of love lost for musical inspiration but I didn’t want to be above having a laugh at my own expense. That theme seemed to pair pretty well with the sugary pop-punk-esque instrumentals and gang vocals as well.
Hydro Illogical
This song employs surf rock sound and lyrically uses the water cycle as a metaphor for self-transformation throughout it. It’s about how one can change so much and yet still be the same person, they can be vapor or ice, but it’s all still water. The vocals change from Dylan to Alex as the lyrics talk of ice melting into water with the second verse’s first line, “So I’ll change the form that I take”. The heavier end has the lyrics point towards feelings of frustration at how it can be hard to reconcile how others view you versus how you view yourself as Dylan comes back in on vocals with a harsher tone to get the emotion across.
Crash and Burn
Of all the songs on the EP this one took the most amount of effort to get into a presentable form. Sonically much of what I would call “our sound” comes through the most here–cool riffs, build ups, unnecessary arpeggios, pensive slowed down bridge and then a goofy experimental outro. Lyrically, it’s a shout out to friends we’ve lost along the way over the years and a declaration that tragedy can still be a catalyst for positive self-improvement when you allow yourself to feel pain rather than guard your heart from it.
Unlearning Sadness
This song is kind of a spiritual successor to the title track of our 2019 LP “Haunted Mind.” In my twenties I either felt more ambitious or was more naive about sharing the emotional burden of people I love who were struggling. A global pandemic, a catastrophic break up and painfully learning the limits of my ability to help those who don’t want to be helped. It re-oriented my perspective on some of the themes we explored in that album. It felt right to strip things down and keep it honest which is the best explanation I can offer for the absence of electric guitar on the track. The result is more or less an anthem about learning to love and take care of yourself for once. Better late than never they say.
Admission of infirmity
This song is one of the heavier songs on the release, and that we’ve ever made. It’s more in the vein of skramz or post-hardcore and touches on anxiety and its physical manifestations. As soon as it starts off with the shaker, you can tell it’s a departure from our usual vibe with harsher vocals and a more aggressive approach for us. The acoustic outro was a late addition to the song, and wasn’t included in the original release of this song as a single for the EP.
Nothing to Lose
This track was us using drum and bass tracks from 2016 that we fleshed out into a full song for this EP. It captures an energy from a different period in our lives, and we used it to take a look outward rather than inward for once in lyrical themes, observing societal flaws rather than reconciling with our own for a change. It’s just driving, straightforward punk and has more vocal grit than we typically use.
