Future Teens’ 2019 album Breakup Season was excellent, but it’s just as likely you’ve encountered the country-tinged Boston emo band through a compilation, be it the Carly Rae Jepsen and Taylor Swift tribute albums they’ve curated or various other projects they’ve contributed music to. After spending most of 2020 stuck in pandemic-induced limbo, they’re ready to launch a new project of their own this winter, an EP called Deliberately Alive.

The EP ends with a dramatic indie rock cover of Cher’s “Believe,” but that one will have to stay under wraps until later. For today, we get the excellent lead single “Guest Room” instead. Amy Hoffman, who shares lead vocal duties with Daniel Radin, takes the spotlight on this one, spinning a punchy and increasingly explosive guitar banger about feeling young, aimless, and scared of the future. “I don’t even have a guest room yet/ How can I expect to die like that?” they begin, before working their way to the line that lends the EP its title: “If I’m gonna be somebody deliberately alive, I wanna do it right.”

Hear “Guest Room” below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Separated Anxiety”
02 “Guest Room”
03 “Play Cool”
04 “Bizarre Affection”
05 “Believe”

Deliberately Alive is out 3/12 on Take This To Heart.