Probable Claws

Sincere Engineer — 2026

“Probable Claws turns racing thoughts, loud hooks, and ticking-clock panic into Sincere Engineer’s strongest record yet.”

Deanna Belos has spent four records turning her own racing brain into pop punk you can shout along to, and I think Probable Claws is the most fully realized record Sincere Engineer has ever made. Their fourth full length, and the first since 2023’s Cheap Grills, was tracked at Electrical Audio in Chicago, and you can hear how tight the band got in that room. The drums hit where they need to and clear out, the guitars run hot without ever stepping on the vocal, and the harmonies stack up clean instead of crowding the chorus. It’s the kind of record you turn up loud with the windows down, a band locked in so well that even the messiest feelings come out sounding sharp. The subject this time is time itself, the way it keeps slipping past faster than anyone can grab. On “The Perfect Crime” Belos calls the clock a thief who stuffs her years in a bag and strolls off laughing, and on “Cooler” she watches ice melt in the back seat while a cop runs her plate, treating one rough afternoon as proof she rushes through everything. There are plenty of revved-up sing-along tracks but then there is the closer “Dynamite” with its slow pace and complete highlight of another side of the band. It is the perfect ending while leaving the door wide open for Sincere Engineer’s future. I think the entire album really works because Belos delivers the right balance and lets us in while never backing down from any of it. She admits she is scared and keeps the hooks landing anyway.

The opener “Twist My Tongue” kicks off this infectious album, a song about choking on the comeback you needed two seconds ago, and the way she sings I shoulda said something but I really said nothing turns that small failure into the first track that makes you throw your fist in the air. “Cooler” is the one track I keep returning to, all nervous forward motion until a quiet break where she mutters a reminder to herself like she is talking herself off a ledge. “Fast Forward, Rewind” is a smart running metaphor as she wraps a breakup in movie language, replaying the last scene to forget somebody walked out, and the chorus swells a little bigger every time it circles back. “LOL” is the loose, fun one, with a spelled-out “L-O-L-O-L-O-L” hook and several narrative pieces inserted from fan and actor Wil Wheaton.

If you know a great band called The Muffs and the way Kim Shattuck could make a bratty hook feel like a pressure valve, Belos is pushing on that same nerve, just with more anxiety stuffed into the verses. Fans of Mannequin Pussy will recognize how she swings from tender to feral without it ever feeling like she even blinked an eye, and the snotty charge of Amyl and the Sniffers matches her refusal to overthink a good yell. Wednesday’s indie rock side feels relevant here, and that knack for hiding a whole feeling inside one strange, specific image runs through both artists. I would also point newcomers toward Jeff Rosenstock, who built a career out of burying real dread under hooks fast enough to outrun it, which is the exact move Belos executes perfectly time and time again.

Belos still writes like the clock is right behind her, and that low hum of panic is what keeps these songs from ever sitting still. You walk away a little more aware of your own ticking, which is probably the whole point.