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Sweetest Betrayal
Out August 13
Our new EP, Sweetest Betrayal, comes out Thursday, August 13. Four songs. You can pre-save it right now:
Here’s a bit about what it is and how it went down…
This one’s from us
In the past, we’ve worked alongside collaborators to get our music made. We’ve counted noted Austin producers and engineers like JR Taylor, Louie Lino, and Jerry Tubb amongst our co-conspirators in the studio.
Most notably, our debut LP, 2023’s A Meaningless Chaos, was made alongside Chris “Frenchie” Smith, and was an amazing experience. He pushed us to places we would not have found alone, and that record still opens doors for us three years and over 550,000 streams later.
This time we decided to take it “in-house.” Joel produced and mixed the whole thing at our Studio Lunar HQ in South Austin, and also played drums on the tracks. There was no outside voice telling us to change a part or to add a lift to a chorus. That gave us a freedom to explore our instincts – and a platform for overthinking that led to paralysis by analysis, depending on the day.
The honest version: it gave us space to be better in the studio. We second-guessed things a professional would have called done. But nothing on this record got smoothed out by someone trying to make it land, and you can hear that. The edges are purposeful; the chances you hear are the ones we chose to keep.
Where the songs came from
Three of the four songs are Erik Salinas compositions.
He brought in “Sweetest Betrayal,” “Human Suit,” and “Deflect For Jimmy,” and the rest of us grabbed them almost immediately. That does not always happen. Usually a song has to fight its way onto a recording. Upon listening, we collectively knew that these ideas had legs.
While we all added our flavor to the stew, musically these songs came to Studio Lunar relatively fully realized. The level of arrangement gave Joel new colors to work with on the production – especially on vocals.
The remaining track in the set had been marinating for a second. Marc brought in “Oh, Little Conqueror” as an abstract idea back in the earliest days of this band. The direction we took it never quite fit anything we were doing at the time and it sat in the drawer…that one we all have labeled “get to it eventually.”
Joel kept saying it was too good an idea to leave collecting dust (as most of Marc’s ideas are). Ultimately, he was right. It is simultaneously quite the departure from Rival Waves and right in the band’s wheelhouse.
What Sweetest Betrayal is about
Our last few offerings looked outward. They were about a world that felt like it was coming apart, and they were loud about it. This one turns things around a bit. These songs are about the more private, inward stuff. The 2 AM kind of stuff.
Whether ruminating in the middle of a relationship collapse, reflecting on the insecurities of unrequited love, obsessing over a psychologically toxic affair, or simply pondering the harshness of life on this spinning rock, these songs felt different for Joel as he was writing lyrics. It was definitely a different part of the spectrum that we got to paint in.
While the lyrical themes are more insular, the music is still loud. The noise is kind of what we do. But it is aimed somewhere different now.
What’s next?
While we’re extremely proud and excited to bring you Sweetest Betrayal, it is not the whole plan. Previous single releases, “Time’s Up,” “SLANT,” and “New Fear,” will anchor a twelve-track new album that will be the biggest thing we have attempted to date. It is due out later this year.
Think of this EP as the deep breath before the dive.
Pre-Save It
Pre-saving genuinely matters for a band our size. It tells the algorithms that people are waiting, and it drops the EP straight into your library on August 13 so you do not have to remember.