After several years of new music constantly being written about the draining sense of isolation wrought by the pandemic, it’s always nice to feel like we’ve returned to normal life again thanks to new music written about draining social interactions. Ahead of his second LP and first for Saddle Creek, I Hope We Can Still Be Friends, Seattle-based songwriter Dean Johnson is sharing a new single from the collection called “Death of the Party” which addresses exactly that: the figure you spend the evening avoiding before you inevitably get pinned in a corner and sapped of all you’re remaining stamina. Johnson’s vocals on the folky cut appropriately bring the anthropologist songwriter Father John Misty to mind on the howling chorus, while the acoustic guitar and brushed drums invoke his nu-country peer Cut Worms.
“‘Death of the Party’ is arguably the most prickly of the album’s handful of prickish songs and the main inspiration for the album title,” Johnson elucidates. “We all know people who can’t stop talking; as though every thought is wired to their tongue. People who drain the life out of you and ruin what would have otherwise been an enjoyable party. This song is dedicated to all the energy vampires I’ve ever known.”
Check out the new track below ahead of I Hope We Can Still Be Friends’s August 22 release. You can pre-order the album here.
