Stream: HUNNY, ‘Saturday Night’ (feat. Bleached)

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HUNNY (Photo by Alice Baxley)
HUNNY (Photo by Alice Baxley)

HUNNY stormed out of Woodland Hills in 2015, kinda New Wave, kinda emo, unfailingly catchy, and boasting an electric live show that immediately stamped them as a must-see band.

Three EPs and a lot of gigs later, the band is preparing to release their debut album, “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.,” out July 19 via Epitaph Records. And, yes, they’re still kinda New Wave, kinda emo, making songs for raging crushes that may or may not lead to even more raging romances. They are newer New Romantics, if you will, dressed to chill.

Produced by Carlos de la Garza (a Grammy winner for his work on Ziggy Marley’s album and producer on recent albums by Cherry Glazerr, Bad Religion, Culture Abuse, Teenage Wrist and Bleached), “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.” actually took shape during last November’s devastating Woolsey Fire. The band — singer Jason Yarger, guitarist Jake Goldstein, bassist-keyboardist Jason Grimmett and drummer Joey Anderson — did one writing session while firefighters were in the backyard. “They blocked off all the streets and we had to sneak into my place through this apartment structure,” Grimmett says. “Thankfully my house is still standing and the hills are a bright green.”

Throughout, they still manage to sound upbeat and dancey, if typically lovelorn. After all, Yarger describes the album’s narrative this way: “I love you and I want to die.”

Save the latter for later. For now, as Yarger sings in the latest single, you can “stay in on a Saturday night / watching ‘My So-Called Life’.”

||| Stream: “Saturday Night” (feat. Bleached)

||| Also: Watch the video for “Lula, I’m Not Mad”

||| Live: HUNNY open for Knuckle Puck and Citizen on May 29 at the Observatory (tickets) and May 31 at the Fonda Theatre (tickets).

||| Previously: “Rebel Red,” live at the Teragram, “Shy,” 2016 Winter Talent Show, “Colder Parts,” “Parking Lot,” “Natalie,” “Cry for Me”