Ears Wide Open: Broken Field Runner

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Broken Field Runner (Photo by Daniel Sliwa)

Ah, the sweet, angular sounds of emo … the pop-punk chorus … a singer with something to say, belting it out like he’s trying to teach you to use a power tool without killing yourself … and that guy probably being someone you could bond with over “Our Weekend Starts on Wednesday.”

There’s a lot to like about Broken Field Runner, the almost-10-year-old project helmed by Tony Bucci. The singer-songwriter, headquartered in L.A. since about 2015, has worked in genres ranging from slowcore to pop-punk, but biting indie-rock with a sharp lyrical focus, late ’90s/early Aughts-styled, has been his forté.

Broken Field Runner’s new EP, “Runner” (out March 4 via Illinois-based Jetsam-Flotsam Records), is the third of a trilogy that began with 2020’s beat-driven “Broken” and continued with last July’s acoustic-oriented “Field.” Those releases followed BFR’s sophomore album, 2019’s “Lay My Head Down.”

“‘Runner’ is probably the closest release of the three to what people might have already expected from a BFR release,” Bucci explains. “These songs were written just before and during the height of the pandemic when Nazzo [drummer Alonso Figueroa] and I started to feel more comfortable with being in the same room again and reflect a return to my musical roots.”

Bucci works with a revolving cast of collaborators on each BFR release, and primary on the new EP are bassist Jayden Seeley (who also engineered the release) and Figueroa.

“Baby Satan” and “Save Me” are the latest two singles from “Runner.”

Of the former, Bucci says, “‘Baby Satan’ was written in a late night jam session in 2019 with NXNES [aka Jo-Jo Rose] and Alonso Figueroa and, while I’m not certain, I️ think the name was given as a placeholder for the voice memo we demoed that same night and just stuck. The verse riff I wrote, honest to god, after trying to play Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Scar Tissue.’ It’s as much about the permanence of birth and death as it is about a piece of music you put your name to once a recording is released. It’s about loving and raising the baby even if that baby is Satan.”

||| Stream: “Baby Satan” and “Save You”