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Listen to a basement emo gem from Chicago

Retirement Party’s “Shoulder It” is a bittersweet shredder.

May 04, 2018

Retirement Party is a Chicago band with song titles like "My Chapstick Melted In The Dryer" and "Passion Fruit Tea." They make a specific type of basement emo, the kind of wordy and ramshackle sing-a-longs that you'd expect from songwriters who grew up in suburbs listening to Green Day. It's a style that, unless I fall off a yacht and get amnesia, I'm pretty sure I will always love. Their first full-length album, called Somewhat Literate, comes out in May.

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Today they're debuting "Shoulder It," an album cut that wouldn't be out of place on the Empire Records soundtrack. The song is a bittersweet shredder, one that finds vocalist Avery Springer looking back with fresh eyes: "You had your place here / but now I'm stuck carrying all the weight," she sings on the hook, "but it's alright / because you taught me to shoulder it." It's an uptempo, super-catchy take on a genre of song that usually makes me a little weepy — the ones about a relationship that, though doomed, changes your life for the better.

Somewhat Literate comes out May 25 on Counter Intuitive Records.