Aaron Maine has always had a complicated relationship with rock’n’roll. In the early 2010s, his band crystallized around unsteady and unsettled guitar music fit for the scrappy DIY venues and dingy basements he often played across the Northeast. Since then, his songs of yearning have become more experimental and opaque, taking tangents through misty synth-pop (2016’s ), dreamy dance music (2018’s ), and blunted ballads that recall ’s lonesome home recordings (2020’s ).
But recently, he’s been thinking about getting loud again. On tour in support of the exuberant pop songs from 2021’s , Maine got a chance to indulge that urge. He turned up the distortion on his guitar, thrashed around the stage, and screamed—a way of exorcizing the anxiety and unhinged energy that lurks beneath his music, even at its softest.
These shows provided the immediate spark for , Maine’s sixth studio album as Porches, a collection of the most crushing songs he’s recorded to date. The record’s heaviest moments document what he’s called the “ ” that he put himself in while making the record. Working in a windowless basement rehearsal space and smoking “a lot of weed” for the first time in his life, he allowed himself to explore an emotional terrain he doesn’t often access.
He wrote songs about existential anxiety and day-to-day distress, accompanying the abstract yet upsetting imagery of his lyrics with shredded production and raw arrangements. Single “Rag” is per.