Today, New Philadelphia band Brideshore is premiering “Lawfully,” a single from their forthcoming debut, Pass You By, to be released June 23.

Brideshore has played four shows around Ohio, including a packed first show in November at Double Happiness. If the live songs translate to recordings as well as this first release–adding complexity while somehow still maintaining live energy–this album will be one that endlessly gives.

“Lawfully” opens with a drum loop and guitar that cast a small taste of “Always Something There To Remind Me” over the song before quickly dropping into a more reflective, melancholy mode that finds its home alongside a blend of Wild Nothing and From Indian Lakes. Maybe a touch of Grandaddy.This mode peaks in the chorus, as guitarist and vocalist Kyle Spinell croons: “I’ll never see you again / I won’t see you anymore.”

At first glance, these lyrics appear to be referencing a breakup or death. Spinell told me, “’Lawfully’ deals a lot with loss; it’s a personal reaction to losing somebody.”

But to stop here would be a shallow reading of the song. Physical loss serves as a gateway to the deeper, more probing themes of identity and investigating one’s place in context to your relationships and the surrounding world.

These themes are hidden in the song’s resolute opening lyrics: “I’ve come around to a recent realization / That people will never be astounded living in their imaginations.” Brideshore seems to be asking listeners to relinquish their phony expectations we project onto our own world. Real wonder can only be seen once we put down our fictions–they’re almost always more boring than the truth anyway.

But of course, the freedom found in this route is a joy that’s barbed with the pain of beginning to accept the world, and yourself, for what they are. Maybe that’s what the true loss in this song actually points to–the necessary loss of self before you can truly find it.

It’s a solitary journey. “Time will pass and I won’t last so long all alone,” ring the lyrics to end the second verse.

About the personal nature of the upcoming album, Spinell said: “Brideshore is very personal. The most personal. When Shiloh [Krebs, Brideshore bassist] and I set out on this adventure a couple summers ago and decided that I was going to front the band, I was spooked. I had never written a real song, with real feeling and a melody. At that point, I knew I had to. It has demanded everything of me in the most beautiful way.”

Spinell continues: “If you listen to this album, you will get a look into my life from the last two years. These are the sounds I heard in my head when times were lovely, tough, and everything in between.”

Expectations are high. And the first recorded release doesn’t disappoint.

-Nate Burdette

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