Bully’s sophomore album is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated releases this spring, with early reviews and critics raving about the record’s explosive power and sharp and potent lyrics. Losing will be released on Sub Pop worldwide on October 20th and today the band released another track from the album titled “Kills to Be Resistant”. The song deals with the emotional conflict of unrequited love and the feeling of restraint and pushing your feelings aside out of respect for the situation.
New York Magazine included Losing as part of their Fall Music Preview writing “”Alicia Bognanno has the loveliest snarl this side of Nirvana’s Live at Reading. That it’s in a pop-punk setting, with lyrics reckoning with adulthood, only strengthens its power.” Wired Magazine also featured the band stating “full of tough-earned wisdom and egalitarian rage, Losing is a high-energy, high-impact emotional workout for everyone involved.” The New York Times featured the previous single “Running” in their music roundup telling us “The bass hops around nervously in nearly constant eighth notes, with drums syncopated against it à la the Police; a guitar on the left offers a neat new-wave hook while another one on the right grumbles occasionally with dissonant, distorted squawks. And as those tensions flare into multiple little crescendos, the singer Alicia Bognanno gets herself more and more worked up.”
Track Listing:
1. Feel the Same
2. Kills to Be Resistant
3. Running
4. Seeing It
5. Guess There
6. Blame
7. Focused
8. Not the Way
9. Spiral
10. Either Way
11. You Could Be Wrong
12. Hate and Control
BULLY – LOSING
BY PATTY SCHEMEL
In rock – as in life – change is unavoidable, often painful, but ultimately necessary, and Alicia Bognanno and her band Bully have dealt with a lot of it since their debut record
Feels Like hit in 2015. Now with a new label and another couple years worth of life experience, the 12 new songs on Losing feel like perfect anthems for a generation still learning to harness the power of resistance. With a vocal style that is as pretty as it is powerful, and emotionally resonant lyrics, Alicia channels the loss of innocence and reveals a raw honesty in songs that are distinctly hers.
I love Bully the way I love Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr and the Breeders. Their sound takes me back to the stripped down and thoughtfully engineered songs that haunt me long after they’re gone and never get old. Another good reason to be with Sub Pop, who have always been associated with music that is built to last.
I feel like all my best work has been born of heartbreak and upheaval; maybe most musicians feel that way. “The title of the record –Losing – kind of says it all,” Alicia says. “After being on the road so long and coming back to Nashville we all had a lot of changes going on in our personal lives that we were trying to deal with / adjust to and that was really the motivation for this one.”
“Feel the Same” is about being stuck in the claustrophobia of a manic state of mind. It’s Alicia’s favorite song to scream. “Seeing It,” she says, is about the unique anxiety and vigilance about personal safety that comes with being a woman: “Such a blurring place to be / stuck in your own body.” Lately Alicia has been lending her voice as an advocate for gun control, women’s rights and speaking out in support of animal rights. In some ways my generation were in a bubble in the 90s; I never gave any thought to what Bill Clinton was up to, for instance – but in 2017, Losing sounds like a personal and necessary call to arms to me; we need rock n roll now more than ever.
