Milly - "Denial"

Milly’s last single, “Star Thistle Blossom,” was one of our favorite tracks during the home stretch of 2020. We featured it here on the site, praising its mixture of sludgy and gaze-y guitar heroics, and also included it on our specially curated playlist for Brooklyn DIY venue Hartstop. For their first single of the new year, “Denial,” the Los Angeles band is serving up more of a slow burning track that explores feelings of disconnection and isolation through its lyrics and instrumentation. 

Though “Denial” is a bit more toned down, the band’s gutsy guitar work still plays a starring role. They chug along with swells of distortion and small bursts of J. Mascis-like riffs working their way to the forefront along the way. And while the track does seem to slink along early on, it gains significant steam as it apexes in the final chorus, where frontman Brendan Dyer sings: “We’re gonna wish on it. I can’t get past denial.” Dyer described the meaning behind the lyrics as capturing a period in his life when he was searching for a past that was long gone: 

Denial is about the idea of being fixated on something but knowing deep down it's gone. I was living in NY at the time I wrote it and was going back and forth between there and Connecticut. I was really trying to capture the feeling of being alone and why it was hard for me to digest how that felt. My hometown spots feeling different after leaving, people moving on with their lives, etc.

The band also shared a music video for the song, which sees Dyer imposed amongst a bunch of trippy computer-generated imagery. Stream it below!

“Denial" will appear on Milly's forthcoming Wish Goes On EP, which is out on April 9th via Dangerbird Records. Stream the song on your platform of choice. Keep up with the band by following them on Instagram and liking them on Facebook.