Dari Bay’s “Chevy” Is a Song About Making Your World Smaller — Until You Break Out

Zack James has been keeping busy. Drums for Lily Seabird and Greg Freeman, primary songwriter in Robber Robber, full-time member of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, all while finishing college and quietly building out Surprise Wish, the new Dari Bay album due June 26 on Double Double Whammy. He made most of it alone, without real studio time, which gives the record a raw and homespun quality that suits the subject matter — bleary bedroom pop melodies about the listless, searching days of your twenties, with punchy arrangements that jolt you awake just when you settle in.

“Chevy” is a character study about control-freaking your way to loneliness. A constricting guitar figure tightens throughout until an instrumental outro mirrors the narrator’s walled-in isolation. James directed the video alongside band member Nina Cates, and it tells the same story — except at the end, he breaks out into the sunlight. The song follows earlier single “We’re Gonna Be Okay,” which Stereogum called “downcast yet vibrant.”

Surprise Wish is a portrait of a person coming into being — songs about isolation, connection, near-disasters, and fragile hope, all filtered through the strange liminal space of young adulthood. The band — Cates on bass, Joey Krouse and Will Krulak on guitar — just finished supporting Whitney on the east coast and head out again this fall with Squirrel Flower. Pre-order below.

Pre-order Surprise Wish ↗

1“Finder”

2“Video”

3“Chevy”

4“The Joke”

5“How Can You Tell”

6“We’re Gonna Be Okay”

7“On Your Side”

8“Bet On the Feeling”

9“Background”