Although it started out as a solo project, Hop Along has long been a group, now with three wickedly good albums to their name — most recently 2018’s Bark Your Head Off, Dog. But Frances Quinlan has been venturing out on her own again recently. Back in October, the Hop Along singer announced a new solo album called Likewise and shared lead single “Rare Thing,” a synthy, twinkling ditty that has some undeniable Hop Along signatures.

Now she’s sharing another called “Now That I’m Back.” It’s a bit quieter than “Rare Thing,” but the stillness is immediately uprooted by a frenzy of shakers, and the addition of some ad-lib vocals. Likewise was recorded with Quinlan’s Hop Along bandmate Joe Reinhart, and he plays the Rhodes throughout, adding a ruminative warmth that’s balanced by Quinlan’s near-shrieking vocals. The chorus seems to erupt quite suddenly as one vocal moves into clear focus, while the other lingers and floats out in reverb filter-land.

In a press release, Quinlan writes:

I find it mystifying that my idea of love has aged and changed right alongside me. I’d always thought of love as something one is given, I didn’t think much about my own capacity for love, for generosity. That’s too bad, but now I understand a little better, I hope. At this point I think love is always there, it exists in the margins, one needs only to access it (though this occasionally requires some struggle and at times some pain).

Compromise is often required for the survival of most relationships. I was thinking about my struggles with compromise for the sake of understanding someone outside myself. It’s a long road, I think this song just portrays the start of it. Love is always around, even as great chunks of time drift from us and we inevitably find ourselves altered and wondering how we got to this place. I frighten myself with thoughts of love disappearing from my life, or of my hardening as a person. I’ve had some odd chapters over the last few years. I think this song came out of one of them.

Listen to “Now That I’m Back” below with a visualizer built from Quinlan’s original illustrations.

Likewise is out 1/31 via Saddle Creek. Pre-order it here.