If you know The Front Bottoms at all, you probably know them from a TikTok clip of “Twin Size Mattress” — a 2013 song that somehow keeps finding new teenagers to gut-punch. But Brian Sella and drummer Mathew Uychich have been doing this for fifteen years, and their eighth album You Are Who You Hang Out With (Fueled by Ramen, 2023) is proof that they haven’t run out of things to say. They just say them louder now.
They brought the record to Marathon Music Works in Nashville on Halloween night, October 31, 2023, and the room was absolutely unhinged in the best possible way — costumed, sweaty, and fully converted. The night’s finest moment was “Paris,” a song that shouldn’t work as well as it does: all 90s slacker guitar on the verses and then a chorus that opens up like a sky. When Sella hit it, half the floor already knew every word, and the other half figured it out fast. That’s the particular magic of this band — you feel like you’ve always known the songs even when you haven’t.
You Are Who You Hang Out With is a record about being in your mid-30s and still feeling like things are uncertain, which turns out to be a universal condition when the songs are this good. “Clear Path” is Sella at his most nakedly honest — just wanting a direction, any direction — and “Fake Gold” carries the kind of ache that sneaks up on you because the drums and handclaps are so cheerful while the words quietly fall apart. Producer Steve Evetts gives the whole thing a live, breathing sound that never lets the polish swallow the feeling.
The Front Bottoms tour relentlessly and play to rooms that feel too small for them — which is exactly the right size. Keep up with their schedule and find the record at thefrontbottoms.com. Go see them the next time they come through. Halloween or not, that room will be on fire.