If The Flaming Lips and Alanis Morissette stumbled into each other on an Italian piazza and gave each other a disapproving sniff, Weakened Friends’ third album Feels Like Hell, released via Don Giovanni Records, might pop up into the space between them. For context, Sonia Sturino (vocals and guitar) photographed the album cover in Italy herself. Feels Like Hell takes Portland, Maine’s Weakened Friends from their moody alt-rock New England chilliness into a warmer climate.
“Since those records have come out, (Sonia) and I both have had a shift. Why not live in your joy and put your genuine self out there all the time?” Annie Hoffman (bass) shares about the band’s evolution. Invited to join Weakened Friends over a decade ago, Annie helped Sonia create a sound evolved from the grunge and guitar music they heard as children in the nineties. “It’s baked into the DNA, I guess,” says Annie.
Their earlier albums, Common Blah (2018) and Quitter (2021), thematically centered about self deprecation and relationship struggles—both internal and interpersonal—cast over a ruthlessly crunchy guitar. Now, as a married couple, with the continued presence of Adam Hand on drums, Annie and Sonia continue to find nihilism as a source of inspiration simultaneously uplifted by their supportive music family. Sonia says, “It does feel really hopeless at times, but then it’s so true that the band does become a community. Not even just the band, but the people who show up. Fans of the band and that extended community.”
Feels Like Hell is the first album Sonia has written since coming out as nonbinary. About coming into their identity, Sonia says, “I feel like I don’t have the anxiety around feminizing my voice.” It is true that their vocals in this latest album feel more grounded, like they project from the heart rather than the skin on their teeth. “Tough Luck (Bleed Me Out),” the first song in the album, attests to that transition. “Just from a sound point of view, it’s been nice to just be able to be me.”
Both Sonia and Annie recalled being labelled “tom boys” as children. While the music industry celebrates male gender ambiguity (see: Prince, David Bowie, Bad Bunny, BTS, Kurt Cobain, Harry Styles, etc.), for women and gender-nonconforming people it remains taboo: “I remember it felt like if you wanted to be a girl in music, you had to be with the fishnets up front, rocking out in that outfit. That’s great if that’s what you want to do, but that didn’t make sense for me. I just wanted to wear baggy clothes and play guitar,” Sonia shares.
If the album stays true to its title, Hell is only a feeling, one that can be overcome by self expression and community. Feels Like Hell champions grunge for the modern world.
Buy Weakened Friends’ new album here and follow the band on Instagram
Photo courtey of Weakened Friends
