Connecticut’s Anxious took the worlds of emo and melodic hardcore by storm with their 2022 debut album Little Green House, and now they’re finally ready to release its followup. It’s due out February 21 via Run For Cover (pre-order) and titled Bambi, named after one of the original discarded ideas for Anxious’ band name, as their new bio explains:
Somewhere in the blur of endless touring, Anxious vocalist Grady Allen was sitting in a hotel room and stumbled upon a name typed into a long-forgotten memo on his phone: Bambi. “We should have named the band Bambi,” he recalls admitting to his bandmates. The tenor of the conversation is likely familiar to anyone of a certain age, when you reflect on choices that a younger version of yourself made and reckon with how things could be different if you’d chosen a different path. Bambi stuck with the band after that night and eventually it evolved from a “what-if” into the name of Anxious’ second full-length album.
[…] Inspired by “big swing” records like Blink-182’s self-titled or Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity, Anxious set out to redefine the band without losing sight of what made them work in the first place. “The idea that Bambi should have been the band name sort of turned into this sentiment that got carried onto the LP,” says Allen. “Bambi is the band we could have been, that I want us to be–and I think the record is that.”
Guitarist/co-vocalist Dante Melucci says that, because of fears of a sophomore slump, “The whole album stayed a mystery to me for so long because there were so many wrong ways to do it.” But once they hit the studio with producer/engineer Brett Romnes (of The Movielife and I Am The Avalanche), those fears started to disappear. “He just did a fantastic job challenging us and pushing our ideas into a whole new echelon,” says Grady.
In addition to their usual punk/hardcore influences, the band cites The Smashing Pumpkins, Animal Collective, and The Beach Boys as influences on this album, and the first taste of the album’s new direction is “Counting Sheep.” The Beach Boys influence definitely comes through in those wordless falsetto harmonies, and it’s also a charged-up emo-punk song with dramatic dual vocals that could fit on the first Taking Back Sunday album. It feels like a clear step up, and it’s distinctly Anxious.
“I had the idea that I could turn the vibe of the Gorillaz self-titled record into a cool Anxious track, and once I had the verse melody and the quick 16th rhythm pacing I knew it was gonna be the best song,” Dante says. “It’s about being lethargic and wasting your time and hiding, all because you’re too afraid to confront just about everything.” It comes with a Max Moore-directed video that seesaws between dream-state surrealism and Anxious playing to unimpressed versions of themselves in an otherwise-empty auditorium, and you can check that out below.
Anxious also have a few Northeast shows happening this fall, including their small, early Ridgewood, Queens show at Trans-Pecos on Saturday, October 26 at 6 PM with Long Island’s Innerlove opening. Tickets for that show are on sale now. They also play Richmond, Amherst, and Buffalo, and then they play their label Run For Cover’s Something in the Way fest next year. All dates are listed below.
Tracklist
1. Never Said
2. Bambi’s Theme
3. Some Girls
4. Counting Sheep
5. Audrey Go Again
6. Head & Spine
7. Tell Me Why
8. Sunder
9. Next Big Star
10. Jacy
11. I’ll Be Around
Anxious — 2024/2025 Tour Dates
10/26 Queens, NY @ Trans-Pecos w/ Innerlove
11/02 Richmond, VA @ LTC Fest
12/13 Amherst, MA @ The Drake
12/14 Buffalo, NY @ Blissmas 2024
02/01 Boston, MA @ Something in the Way Fest