Stream: The Pretty Flowers, ‘Another Way to Lose’

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The Pretty Flowers (Photo by Sasha Loobkoff)

“How do you cope / when everything around you is a joke?” Noah Green asks in “Another Way to Lose,” one of two new singles released today by the Pretty Flowers.

Considering the political climate and the physical and mental health of a nation, it’s a valid question, and one the L.A. quartet answers as indie-rock bands down through the ages have — with knife-fight guitar licks, crash-bang rhythms and a healthy dose of lyrical causticity. As soldiers of many a campaign for various bands on L.A.’s indie-rock scene, Green and bandmates Sam Tiger, Jake Gideon and Sean Johnson know what they’re about. And it ain’t woe-is-me love songs.

“Another Way to Lose” reveals the Replacements’ DNA in the music of the Pretty Flowers, who released their debut album “Why Trains Crash” in 2018 and last year put out the (somewhat-surprising) covers collection, “Golden Beat Sessions,” in which they tackled the likes of Warren Zevon, the Wipers, Teenage Fanclub and Phoebe Bridgers.

“The Long Con” vents the emotions of a maturing guy who feels he’s been fed a lifetime of lies — and, since it’s L.A., empty promise. “It was pretty pathetic of me / To think that I could ever change a goddamn thing,” Green sings with no small amount of disgust. Thankfully, in ways incremental, the Pretty Flowers are still trying.

The new singles were recorded at L.A.’s Studio Red by ​Adam Lasus​ (Helium, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Happyness) and mixed by ​Alex Newport.

||| Stream: “Another Way to Lose” and “The Long Con”

||| Previously: “Why Trains Crash”