In 2020, New Jersey–based outfit Little Hag joined the roster of local indie-pop label Bar/None Records with what was essentially a compilation of early recordings scraped together to create something resembling a debut album. After a more proper debut a year later, the project fronted by Avery Mandeville is riffing on the compilation idea once again with a new record called Now That's What I Call Little Hag. I guess you could say it is a best-of collection when you consider that the songs they may have recorded for this session that didn’t make the final cut weren’t quite as good as the 13 included here.
Ahead of the album’s release next Friday, they’re sharing the second single from it titled “Suck Out the Pain,” a reflective ballad recounting a fairly horrific dream Mandeville had before the grunge guitars kick in around the one-minute mark lighting the song up as a headbanging conclusion to the record. “I fell asleep watching Jersey Shore and woke up sweating from a dream where a girl I used to see was eating me alive like a vampire,” Mandeville shares of the song’s inspiration. “It made me nostalgic for ‘the before times’ when we were bartending and partying and I felt superhuman.”
The track’s video appropriately scans as a montage of endearing scenes shared with this former partner, including but not limited to a trip to Rita’s. The summer’s short, folks, make sure you get that Rita’s trip in. Choose who you bring with you wisely, though. Y’know, in case they require you to Eternal-Sunshine that memory out later on.
Check out the video below, and pre-save the album here.
