EP Premiere: Booze Radly – ‘Lose, Badly’
Posted: by The Editor
Lose, Badly, the new EP from Booze Radly, blasts off out of the gate with a thumping drum pattern and little surf riff while Alex Manescu seems to narrate the lyrics from an out-of-body perspective, watching himself make awful decisions like getting drunk and sending “late night texts,” and questioning “who hears this white guy emo and thinks that we need more?” At two minutes, the track is a quick ripper to kick off the EP and the addition of Gabby Relos doubling Manescu’s vocals an octave higher at points gives the song an extra punch.
As if intentionally trying to avoid the trap suggested in the title of “White Guy Emo,” Booze Radly use Lose, Badly to dive into different strains of punk, emo, and hardcore. “Crash and Burn” kicks off with a heavy Offspring-style riff before a bridge featuring the EP’s darkest lyrics and a heavy outro overtop of a relatable Peep Show clip—the audio clips add a nice touch to the EP, particularly the final sendoff at the end of “Quick Ass Test (Nothing to Lose).” On “Unlearning Sadness,” the group uses a steely acoustic guitar riff to soundtrack a phone call before the melody begins to echo “White Guy Emo,” as the band goes out on the repetition of “I’ve let your sadness be my own for far too long.” “Hydro-Illogical” and “Admission of Infirmity” are the heaviest tracks here in different ways, with “Hydro-Illogical” more of a snotty garage rocker that devolves into the final conclusion of “God I know I sound like such a fucking asshole” in the lyrics and a goofy little sax riff, as if the band needed to throw something in there to keep things from getting too dour. “Admission of Infirmity” takes a skramz route as Dylan Molloy shrieks lines like “I don’t know why / this shit happens / I can’t afford / a therapist” and “syllabic waste / over-caffeinate / my heart palpitates / I’m grinding my teeth.”
Kicking off with the lines “is this really fucking worth it? / A whole life feeling fucking worthless / this whole-ass world has gone to shit / we do our best to live with it,” closer “Quick Ass Test (Nothing to Lose)” finds Booze Radly at their angstiest on Lose, Badly ending with an almost unsettling contrast between the heavy riffs under “someone fucking pull the goddamn plug / I’m plugging into the hive / uploading new mind files” and the final audio clip which works as a reminder that sometimes even when you win, you’ve actually lost.
On Lose, Badly, the band said “The EP as a whole I think is sort of championing solidarity in loss. Losing or losers are usually either part of counter culture or straight up antagonistic evaluations of others. Especially in a world where everything is taken thru the lens of social media I feel like we forget that it’s a necessary part of the human experience. How can we be expected to learn from our mistakes when we either are petrified of making them or applauding them as courageous?
On a literal level I think the EP stemmed from seeing personal relationships tank while we face planted handling a global pandemic with any sense of empathy for others and lost several key political struggles that will have generational impact.
It felt like one bad loss after another but when we sat down to work on music together there was a real sense that we were in it together. It may be kind of a fragile silver lining but these days we take the wins where we can find them.”
Lose, Badly is streaming everywhere tomorrow with cassettes via Lonely Ghost Records, but you can listen here a day early.
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Aaron Eisenreich | @slobboyreject
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