The Montana band Hey, ily play an ultra-online form of genre-jumping rock music, bringing a bit of chiptune flare to songs that veer from sugary pop-punk to anthemic emo to crushing post-hardcore. Today they’re back with a pair of tracks to close out 2022. “Friend Group From Hell” and “3,2,1 Starve! (Why Do I Still Look The Same?)” run the gamut of Hey, ily’s aesthetic, comprising brisk uptempo pop, a rocksteady breakdown, hellacious screamo, post-rock, and more. They may be my two favorite songs from this band so far.

Speaking to The Alternative, Caleb Haynes offered this statement on the former track:

This song is the first time all five of us have sat down and truly collaborated on a song together. That’s probably why we think it perfectly encapsulates what a Hey, ily! song should be: noisy, chaotic, catchy, and genre-bending. It probably also ends up being our angriest song yet. Lyrically, the song is about being forced to be around people who are slowly partying themselves out of any aspirations and nutric personality, forcing you to witness, and in turn, be affected by their descent into toxicity.

And here’s Haynes on the latter:

When we get bored of writing power-pop flavored emo tunes, we try to experiment and write a song in a genre we haven’t before. That’s where this song came into play. Inspired by bands like Cerce, Foxtails, and Leer, we wanted to write a kind of throwback screamo song. Whether or not we accomplished that is still up to debate. This song definitely took us the longest to write so far, for a while we couldn’t figure out where we wanted to take the song. At one point it even had a djent breakdown, but we decided to ixnay that. Lyrically, the song is an internal struggle, wanting to advocate for body positivity and self-acceptance but still trying your best to change your own physique, wrongfully thinking it’ll increase your self worth. It can really make you feel hypocritical. I was just sick of being in that mindset, and writing an angry hardcore-inspired song was my best way out.

Hear both songs below.

“Friend Group From Hell” b/w “3,2,1 Starve! (Why Do I Still Look The Same?)” is out now on Lonely Ghost.