Just over a month following the release of “radiohead,” one of their best singles to date, Nightly offers up another taste of their upcoming album with the new track “dry eyes.” The group’s output over the last few years has been astounding considering the speed and quality of the releases, and “dry eyes” proves to be a worthy addition to their rapidly growing discography.
“radiohead,” a hard turn away from the up-tempo alternative pop-rock the band had been shelling out i.e. “dirty white chucks” and “hate my favorite band,” was introspective, lyrically and sonically compelling, and, overall, a more adult/mature sound. Lead singer Jonathan Capeci stated, in a recent interview here for EUPHORIA., that the track was a bit of an outlier compared to the rest of the material on their next album. If “dry eyes” is anything to go by, he was right.
“dry eyes” could be mashed right up with Foster The People’s enduring 2017 jam “Sit Next To Me,” specifically in the post-chorus and instrumental solo sections. This is an impressive feat that proves, without a doubt, that Nightly is, undoubtedly, completely and utterly focused and primed at this current moment. The confidence and unwavering sense of direction bleed out of every facet of this track.
Better yet, the track, essentially, has two hooks. The first is the single line, “I’m not spending countless hours picking petals off of flowers,” in the pre-chorus. In the era of needing to find simple, digestible phrases to be shared and regurgitated on social media, that line is an immediate caption.
The second is, of course, in the chorus itself. You can almost hear the smirk on Capeci’s face as he shakes off a past relationship that affected him negatively in favor of his current flame, who he feels content and safe with: “She don’t love me the way that you used to / I’m not holding back tears every night / Ever since she came around, I’m wakin up with dry eyes.”
This is the same band that, just two-and-a-half years ago, released songs like “lose a friend” and “I got so much to tell you.” Songs that desperately tried to establish some sort of last-ditch effort friendship with a former partner. Now, the ball is in their court, and those lingering emotions are far gone; “And you can keep the shit that I left at your place / I moved onto a better headspace / Found someone who let me be myself.”
That change in emotion and in lifestyle caused a seismic shift in the band’s overall drive and sound. As a result, Nightly is, in Gen-Z terms, in their bag right now.
Stream “dry eyes” on Spotify: