A couple months ago, the Brighton dream-pop outfit Thyla announced their debut EP What’s On Your Mind. (Previously, we had named them both a Band To Watch and one of the Best New Bands Of 2018.) So far, we’ve heard previews by way of “Candy” and “Blue.” And now, with the EP’s release just a couple days away, Thyla have offered one more track ahead of time: its stunning opener “Only Ever.”

Previously, frontwoman Millie Duthie had described What’s On Your Mind as being thematically dominated by “the ills of today’s ‘social network,'” stating that her lyrics were “based on negative personal experiences and a subsequent thirst to understand what it is that has made us so miserable.” Fittingly enough considering it’s the intro the EP, “Only Ever” grapples with some of those concepts, particularly the strange and sometimes discomfiting interaction between online self-promotion and creative endeavors. Here’s what Duthie had to say about the track:

This was one of those songs that wrote itself. We’d all been out in Brighton together and the morning after decided to do a writing session, it just came out of nowhere. Lyrically it’s a stream of consciousness, something I had to retrospectively analyze to work out what I was on about. It’s my own lament about losing myself to the person I project online in the pursuit of becoming successful. It’s an apology for what I can only describe as bragging, something that’s become obligatory for the aspiring musician to do, post this, share this, tell the world how well you’re doing when in actual fact it doesn’t always feel that way. The lyric “I’m hoping I could be the feeling” tries to embody that vulnerability.

The verses are like my devil alter-ego, the part of me thats addicted to the instant gratification that you get from sharing your successes. “I could break you, I could make you into a laughing type, I was always good at guessing your mind.” The choruses are like an expression of regret for that behavior.

Like everything else we’ve heard from Thyla so far, “Only Ever” is full of crystalline drama. Though some of their singles last year started to incorporate more post-punk edge or a grunge-y aggression, “Only Ever” feels like a perfect center of their various interests. It’s a heavy, cathartic piece of dream-pop, featuring Duthie’s customarily expressive vocals and the kind of aqueous guitars that feel like pummeling waves. Check it out below.

The What’s On Your Mind EP is out 2/1 via REX Records.