Photo by Rebecca Lader

Of the couple times I’ve seen Anxious play live, it’s either been an early set at a smaller hardcore fest or a tiny DIY space that somehow crammed a 100 bodies in to one room-sized pit. It’s always electric and you can just feel that it’s been bottling up its own potential to go even further ever sine their 2021 debut breakthrough, Tiny Green House. While they’ve been exercising out that by hitting the road hard since then, it’s hearing the Connecticut melodic hardcore band’s sound grow by a bigger volume as its bursts through the speaker that has to have listeners looking forward to seeing that potential realized in the year ahead. With the energy already having been there, “Head & Spine” — the latest preview from their sophomore effort, Bambi — matches it limb for limb by leveraging heftier riffs, a chest-beating chorus, and an all-consuming flair for drama on the production’s surface to bolster Grady Allen’s roaring call out against a snide subculture scene’s way of punching down for clout. “No use in friends when your interest is fighting / It all flows back to the source of trouble you’re in / You’re paying rent and the currency is lying / But don’t feel bad cause you spend it so well in my skin,” he shouts. There’s enough momentum going for them on this jam to knock anyone’s skull off.

Show footage by: Kinkade Ruppert

Anxious’ Bambi will be released February 21st on Run for Cover Records.