The Portland emo band Alien Boy have two full-lengths to their name so far, 2015’s Never Getting Over It and 2018’s Sleeping Lessons, and they’re gearing up for a new one, Don’t Know What I Am, which comes out in August. Today, they’re sharing its lead single “The Way I Feel,” which is a bright and chiming and hooky blast of energy occupied with trying to recapture the feeling of childhood and failing every time.

“Big or small, is there even a scar when so much has changed about who we are?/ It’s just invisible ink bleeding out of the corner of my heart,” Sonia Weber sings in the run-up to the chorus: “Turn off the phone, I’m not at home/ The way you loved me hurts too much/ the way I feel/ The way you make me feel won’t come around again.” Listen below.

Here is Weber’s statement on the track:

To me this song picks up right where our last record left off. I was totally devastated writing the songs for sleeping lessons and as much as my life changed and the world kept moving around me, I still felt confused. I didn’t know who I was as a person, or as an artist. I didn’t feel like I knew how to write about moving on, or about anything else really. I wrote “The Way I Feel” in the summer of 2018 and it was the first moment the new record felt like it was forming its shape. We had a couple songs in the tank already but nothing had that special feeling. This song is me asking all of the questions that ricocheted off of the sentiment of our last record. What now? What do I do next? Will this ever be okay? Am I over that part of my life or am I still caught in the muck?

Since then we’ve toured a ton and played this song a lot so hearing it now in its final form is so exciting to me. Musically it draws from that jangly Johnny Marr style guitar and 90’s movie soundtrack music. Writing the guitar for this song was so much fun too, I remember staying up for hours working out the lead guitar line. It’s probably my favorite lead line I’ve ever written.

When I sing the final chorus of “the way you make me feel won’t come around again” I’m not even sure what I mean by that. Will I never feel that way again? Or do I not ever want to feel that way again? It changes every time I sing it. Like always I’m crying out for answers I’ll never really get.

TRACKLIST:
01 “The Way I Feel”
02 “Nothing’s Enough”
03 “Dear Nora”
04 “Heartburn”
05 “Ache #2”
06 “Something Better”
07 “Seventeen”
08 “How Do I Think When Yr Asleep?”
09 “Memory’s Vault”
10 “TV Will Always Make Me Cry”
11 “The Way I Disappoint You”

Don’t Know What I Am is out 8/20 via Get Better Records.