Back in May, the heartily emotive Los Angeles indie rockers Spanish Love Songs launched their rollout for new album No Joy with lead single “Haunted.” They’ve since shared “Clean-Up Crew” and are back today with “Pendulum.” These songs crash ahead with huge, anthemic energy, from their pop-rock foundations to their shout-along peaks. Though the band arose out of the emo scene, I hear a bit of Okkervil River in Dylan Slocum’s quavering bellows, and the phrasing on “Pendulum” takes me back to LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends.”

Slocum has this to say about “Pendulum,” which yielded No Joy its album title:

The song is a few different stories blended together that all dance around the fact that death is such a solitary act. The details of the stories are meant to feel vaguely familiar — someone on the verge of dying alone in a hospital; someone with dementia; countless friends who’ve decided to end it on their own terms. We’ve all lost someone.

I think people generally don’t want to be left alone, or to die alone, yet that’s often all we’re left with. It’s all very terrifying, so a lot of the time I’m just trying to be present and enjoy what I’ve managed to scrape together. I wait for the pendulum of my worry to swing the other way, into some form of manic love.

Below, watch Hannah Gray Hall’s video for “Pendulum” and check out “Clean-Up Crew” too.

No Joy is out 8/25 on Pure Noise.