Alicia Bognanno’s project Bully has been cranking out excellent jams for more than a decade, but she raised things to a new level with the 2023 LP Lucky For You, one of the best albums of last year. Since its release, Bognanno has covered Jackson Browne, collaborated with Militarie Gun, and shown up on the soundtrack to The Buccaneers. Today, we get a new Bully single, and it’s a different look for the project.

We already knew that Alicia Bognanno is a masterly guitar-fuzz auteur, but there’s no guitar on the new single “Atom Bomb.” Instead, it’s a gentle, delicate piano ballad, with some reverb-heavy strings in there. But Bognanno’s bruised melodies, dynamic control, and raspy voice still dominate the track. It sounds huge and powerful. Here’s what she says about it:

The song was originally recorded with a drum machine and electric guitar; it was also quite a bit faster. When I played the demo for JT Daly (producer), he had the idea of moving it to the piano. I remember saying out loud, “Can you believe I’m trusting anybody like this?” We both started laughing because starting off as someone who used to record, mix, and produce their own records to avoid the vulnerability that comes with working out creative ideas in the company of others, it was a huge step for me. That was our first real bonding moment, acknowledging that we were mutually up for trying new things and seeing each other’s ideas through before one of us shut it down.

Check out the Bree Marie Fish-directed live video for “Atom Bomb” below.

“Atom Bomb” is out now on Sub Pop.