The Front Bottoms don’t mean to write concept records. They’re just living concept lives.
Their album In Sickness & In Flames wasn’t intended to be “the pandemic record,” but by the time the dust settled—literal and metaphorical—it had somehow become a soundtrack for unraveling. And then rebuilding. Sort of.
“We started making this record before any of that happened,” says frontman Brian Sella, “but now it’s like—‘wearing a mask but you can still see my face’? ‘I am the virus’? It’s like we knew.”
He doesn’t mean it literally. But also… maybe?
The record is full of strange echoes like that—bits of studio chatter, voice memos, backyard bird noises—sewn between songs that read like journal entries from a generation learning how to cope with adulthood, despair, and the occasional demolition of a housing project. “Montgomery Forever,” one of the album’s best, is named after a building they watched get blown up in Jersey City. “There was a woman with a shirt that said it, and I was like… yeah, okay, that’s a song.”
The album is their most expansive to date, both in terms of scope and sound. But according to the band, it’s also a return to basics. “We needed to take back control,” says drummer Mat Uychich. “Get back to just us.”
The result is what you’d expect from a band that once made a hit about hitting their dad with a bat: a mix of nervous tension, accidental profundity, and lyrics that make you laugh until you realize you might be crying. “Some people say, ‘That song makes me cry.’ Other people say, ‘Funniest thing I’ve ever heard.’ That’s kind of the goal,” says Sella. “Confusion is the emotion.”
Still, there’s joy in the chaos. Even as the world was canceling tours and spiraling into lockdown, the band stayed active—performing drive-in shows, jumping on Twitch, releasing ukulele versions of new songs to raise money for Black Lives Matter. “It’s all about trying to stay creative,” says Uychich. “That’s what’s always saved us.”
And then there’s the possibility of a rock opera, which they swear isn’t on the books—yet. “It’s not the plan,” says Sella. “But it might be what we’re doing next.”
Of course it is.
Listen to the interview above and then check out the videos below.
