Portland, Oregon, rockers Alien Boy have shared the latest single ahead of their forthcoming album Don’t Know What I Am, coming Aug. 20 on Get Better Records. “Dear Nora” is our third and final preview of the record, following “The Way I Feel” and “Nothing’s Enough.”
“Dear Nora” finds Alien Boy—i.e., guitarist and songwriter Sonia Weber, drummer Derek McNeil and “a rotating cast of Portland, Oregon scene stalwarts”—looking back on “Somewhere Without Me,” the opening track from their 2018 record Sleeping Lessons, and using an old song to find their way in a new direction. A melodic lead riff surfs waves of whammied shoegaze fuzz, only receding to make space for Weber’s lovesick vocals: “You’re everything, you’re everything,” she sings, gushing, “I adore you so, you adore me in the way I always wanted.” It’s a love song to the core, communicating its larger-than-life feelings and desires via dreamily distorted guitars and punchy low end.
Weber says of the song in a statement:
“Dear Nora” is a love song and a call and response to our song “Somewhere Without Me” on the last record. When I first started writing for ‘Don’t Know What I Am’ I was feeling pretty shut down about what to write about so a few times throughout the years of writing this record I would prompt myself using the old songs. If I felt this way back then where am I now? I was falling in love again, and this song is about that—being adored and totally wrapped up in someone new and how hot, amazing and confusing it can feel.
Listen to “Dear Nora” below. You can preorder Don’t Know What I Am right here.
