It’s certainly nothing special to lean into honest and vulnerable songwriting in the year 2025, but there aren’t a whole lot of bands out there doing it like Chase Petra. Within the 13 songs on their newly released second album Lullabies for Dogs, the folk-punk trio catch us up to speed on the past six years of their personal development via songwriting that taps into the anti-folk tradition of what may initially come across as unfiltered, TMI storytelling. Pre-album single “A Bug’s Life,” for example, was about the type of conflict more conventional folk musicians have been penning self-growth ballads about for decades—though in founding member Hunter Allen’s hands, their track is about not being the bigger person in such a situation.
Much of the rest of the record follows suit, with the title’s canines referencing a track that turns Iggy Pop’s iconic masochistic pleas on their side as Allen pictures themself as their own dog. Yet as hysterical (in one or both senses of the word) as the lyrical imagery gets, Lullabies for Dogs remains an earnest missive about accepting adulthood and all of the weirdness, frustrations, and injustices that come with it. Ultimately, it’s a record that subverts mainstream ideas of success, as album closer “Hospital Bills and Scratchers” celebrates the little moments instead of grand success stories more commonly attributed to artists who don’t speak this openly about subjects like spite and jealousy.
With the record out today via Wax Bodega, Hunter Allen went way in-depth on all 13 tracks from the LP in a frank manner you might expect them to. Read the breakdown and stream the LP below, and purchase Lullabies for Dogs here.
1. “Centrifugal Force”
This song is something I finished out of spite. I did so after listening to an album that I was so deeply envious of; something that I was angry at myself for not writing. This is, of course, deeply unfair to myself—not to mention that comparison is the death of art. It’s also a song that was stomped on in its infancy. I wrote the first verse months before I managed to complete the song, in part because the first person I showed it to told me that I could “do better.” So it only seemed right that in a moment of bitter jealousy and self-flagellation I should complete the song which was never good enough to have existed in the first place. And in the end, she’s the first single off our sophomore album. Not just a song worth writing, recording, and releasing, but one worth highlighting and celebrating.
2. “Catharsis”
“Catharsis” actually has a bit in common with “Centrifugal Force”—not only in subject matter, but in the way it was created. Bits and pieces of this song are from a long time ago (I’m talking a decade ago “long”). Turns out some things are capable of haunting you your entire life, such as the pressure to achieve the outdated goals you set for yourself as a seven year old.
Failure looms like an insatiable deity at my back, and has my whole life. It’s not a unique concept, but it is a daunting one. Funnily enough, the things I went through while recording this album actually helped turn that deity into more of a pesky wraith that nips at my heels occasionally, but it doesn’t quite control me the way it once did. That said, as someone who’s spent their entire adult life putting their most calamitous memories and crudest feelings on display, I do have to wonder what failure even means in a world where success equates to baring the most fragile parts of myself. I have to wonder what it is that I actually want. We all do. And somehow we tried to wrap all of this up in a neat bow with a relentlessly charging acoustic guitar and a harmony or two (or three).
3. “Two Nights in New York”
“Two Nights in New York” is the first honest-to-god love song I’ve ever written. It’s about falling in love on the East Coast and feeling young and ridiculous and unbridled by the rest of the world. It’s about falling in love with someone in spite of the fact that you live on different continents and knowing from the very beginning that that love would be worth the pain of being separated by geography. Consider it an ode to every long-distance relationship that stood the test of time.
Sonically, the darkness of this song alludes to the quiet realization that love was always supposed to feel this safe and easy. Among all the relief and elation of finding true love, there’s also this pinprick of knowing that all of the hurting you’ve endured in the past wasn’t what you thought it was—it wasn’t noble or honorable. It was just clumsy and unfair. The almost-dissonant sounds are a hopeful but pained recognition that love was supposed to be sweet all along. But it's also an admission of how unbelievably lucky you are to have found your way there in the end, and that you wouldn’t change one damn thing.
4. “Have Faith, Horatio”
In writing this song, I figured many people would assume I grew up in a church. Let me be very clear: I was raised with little to no guidance in terms of religion, and I only ever went to church when my friends’ parents made me. That said, I wrote this song not only for my many friends who’ve been irreparably changed by their religious upbringings, but also for the ways in which the church has clawed at me for attention all while ripping away at the human rights of my friends and myself. The anti-abortion protesters on my college campus, the right-wing grifters misappropriating scripture online, the pastor a few towns over who used all of his congregation’s donations to buy himself a damned private jet—they can all kiss my ass. And you can quote me on that.
This song is maybe the simplest in the entire album because it’s fairly cut-and-dry. I abhor the way organized religion is used to manipulate and abuse people—particularly women, children, and the impoverished.
5. “Bread and Circus”
Another track about music and the fallibility of the dreams we impress upon ourselves as children, though this one’s got a special spin: call it political, if you will. “Bread and Circus” refers to the idea that as long as the people are fed and distracted, true dissent and revolution will be tempered. Oddly enough, though, we’ve become our own circus, our own distraction. The panopticon will out, Foucault wins again. When an app is free, you’re the product. So on and so forth.
The sharp switch to that waltzy feel in the second-half of the chorus is a not-so-subtle nod toward the circus that we’re addressing. The more straightforward verses detail the life of a person who’s getting older and doing their damndest to prove their optimism is an excellent weapon against the encroaching dark, and I suppose it is. The bridge—which has always sort of felt like elevator music to me (not derogatory)—is the deep dive into exactly what we’re up against. A society that polices itself within an inch of its life. A world that was always going to dance itself to death (see: the dancing plague of 1518). And you (well, me) wanting to be a rockstar since before you knew you could choose something else.
6. “Icarus”
This track is a really bare, stripped-down moment and it mimics the meaning of the song itself. The brief interlude is an ode to how utterly terrifying and vulnerable it is to take a risk and to bet on yourself. It’s about those moments in which you feel destined to fail, and yet somehow your feet keep running toward the edge of the cliff. The background vocals, a little mysterious and refractory, feel like flying.
7. “Because I Am My Own Dog”
This was our dream horn section song. For all intents and purposes, it’s a break-up anthem, and what better way is there to send off a past love than with some jazzy brass? This is also the only track on the album that Brooke, Evan, and I tracked live in-studio without a click. The vocals are delivered plainly, almost talkative in nature, and they contain one of my favorite lines from the album: “I take myself on little walks around the block, probably because I am my own dog.” When that line first popped out of me I laughed like a madman. I actually laughed while I wrote a lot of this song. I was fairly angry at the time, and sometimes that anger transmutes into humor. There are worse coping mechanisms, I think. Either way, the moral of the story here is: If you’re a man and you’re thinking about calling me “explosive,” don’t.
8. “She Simply Left”
I’ve always been taken by the idea of a narrative: escaping into one, breaking free of another, creating your own. This song is about the bits and pieces between the excitement of prose. It’s every moment that doesn’t feel worth writing down. This song eluded me for years. I wrote it during quarantine and then rewrote it and then rewrote it once or twice more. Even while we were recording it, I still wasn’t convinced of its completion. Even now I’m not convinced that it’s done, but sometimes that’s the way art goes. I’ve met many artists who are plagued by the incessant need to “perfect” something before letting anyone see it, but the reality is that nothing’s ever perfect, nor is it ever really done. Music in particular is something that moves and changes and sounds different in one room versus another. “She Simply Left” is yet another example of this. Life lessons aside, the string quartet that performed on this song is worth the listen, if nothing else.
9. “The Needle”
“The Needle” is about existing in a body that doesn’t feel like your own. For several years I really struggled with dissociation, and it took a long time to overcome. I did lots of therapy (with my therapist, Roberta—ILY, Roberta) and finally got medicated (big ups to anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds). And I’ll always deal with it to some extent, but hey, that’s life. The borderline discombobulated nature of the track (acoustic guitars, electronic drums, and punchy choruses) is an audible manifestation of the absurdity that comes from looking into a mirror and not recognizing the face you see.
10. “The Suture”
“The Suture” is about the days in which I realized that I wanted to live so, so badly. More than anything, I want to be alive to see and experience and feel, and I’m so grateful to be here and I wouldn’t be able to appreciate that fact the way I do if it weren’t for the years that inspired “The Needle,” hence the sonic overlap in these songs.
11. “A Bug’s Life”
This song is about vengeance and grudges and doing whatever you gotta do to feel right by yourself. I’ve taken the higher road a few times in my life—and sometimes it really is for the best, but other times it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth and unfinished business in your rearview. At almost 28 years old, I think I’m finally starting to get the hang of which is which, and I’ll live with the consequences of my actions either way. So everyone keep your eyes on your own test, yeah?
I started writing this song in a middle school music room during my conference period while I was still substitute-teaching. I had a piano and some harsh words to spend, and so I did—with the doors closed so the kids outside couldn’t hear me, of course. Once this song reached the studio, we got a little country with it, because what’s an LP without a banjo feature? Then we had our friend, Seamus, come around to throw some strings down. Then we argued (lovingly) about production choices for the last chorus for several hours. Our compromise is what you all get on this album.
12. “IWYTWT”
If you’re gonna write an album, there has to be at least one song with a banjo and one about boning. I don’t make the rules, I just work here. That said, “IWYTWT” (“I Want You to Want To”) is a deeply unsubtle invitation to hop into the backseat of a very spacious minivan, if you catch my drift. The driving, droning bass line really guided us throughout the writing process. In terms of vocal melody it feels a bit different from my go-to “never let them guess your next move” vibe. That’s thanks to Brooke, who set the tone of this song after the three of us had been slamming our heads into the wall over this mother of a track for months. Brooke cracked the case wide open and, thankfully, now we can all sing about getting it on in a minivan—which I did actually pay for, thank you very much.
13. “Hospital Bills and Scratchers”
We admittedly got a little theatrical on this final track. There’s piano and strings and sing-along moments, and it felt like a proper send-off for the album. It’s also the final track that addresses the trials and tribulations of pursuing an artist's lifestyle. It’s about jealousy and financial destitution and how vain it feels to be peddling musical entertainment in a world that’s actively on fire and in acute distress at all times. But this resolves in the final moments of the song. We sing over and over, “I’ve changed my mind, waste my time.” There’s another song, “Contractual,” from our first album. The lyric in that song goes, “I don’t want to waste my time just trying to get by,” and it’s a simple enough thought. But it’s a thought from the mind of a scared 18-year-old who believed that the only things that mattered were big and final and definitive. That was a kid who thought life was a bunch of boxes to be checked, and once the boxes were checked, once greatness was achieved, then there would be satisfaction.
But the end of “Hospital Bills and Scratchers” is the antithesis of this idea. The song is my concession that greatness isn’t actually all that great. I know now that my life is about all of the understated bits and pieces; all of the things that happen in the middle. And maybe it’s pedestrian and, god forbid, maybe the world is ending, but I don’t want to spend the time we have left striving for big things only to realize that that was never really the point. This song is our promise to our friends and our fans that we’re happy for all of the in-betweens we spend together and that by being together, we’ve already achieved all that we could’ve hoped to. This song is proof that we grew up (oh, boy, we did) and that we’re all the better for it after all.
