With alt-country being indie rock’s current flavor of the month (or perhaps of the past couple years), early adopters of the genre like Hovvdy and Friendship have taken to experimenting outside of pedal steel and slide guitars with the latter’s forthcoming album Love the Stranger so far proving to be janglier, blippier, and more plainspoken than previous outings. With the final single ahead of that record’s July 29 release date arriving today in the form of “Chomp Chomp”—whose refrain supplies the album’s title—the band provides more minimal, twanging rock sounds spotlighting Dan Wriggins’ near-spoken-word lyricism.
“‘Chomp Chomp’ is based on a composition of [drummer Michael Cormier-O’Leary’s] from a few years ago,” he shares. “He had some complicated chords in there. We scrapped most of them but left a couple in. We also scrapped my rhythm guitar part—a good decision more often than not.”
While the instrumental got stripped to its bare essentials, Wriggins uses the wide-open soundscape to reflect on simple pleasures in a complicated world. “Lyrically, it’s another one about the miracle of love,” he adds. “And about dumb advice I’ve given because I thought I was protecting someone.”Hear the track below, and pre-order Love the Stranger here.
