Slick licks, sharp rhythms, and a touch of existential dread: that’s the winning formula behind Philly’s Carly Cosgrove.
The latest in a robust lineage of emo-adjacent bands from the Delaware Valley — think Sweet Pill, Modern Baseball, Algernon Cadwallader — the trio has been working hard on the local scene over the past five years, honing their technical chops and introspective lyricism. Sometimes perceived as a lighthearted tribute to the Nickelodeon sitcom iCarly (their band name is a portmonteau of the title character and the person playing her, after all), their songs pack an earnest punch when you dig below the pop cultural nods on the surface, and on their new album The Cleanest Of Houses Are Empty, released in June on Wax Bodega Records, Carly Cosgrove have truly come into their own.
In this week’s Key Studio Session, the band — singer-guitarist Lucas Naylor, bassist Helen Barsz, and drummer Tyler Kramer — showcase highlights from Houses in WXPN’s performance space, hitting on raw and vulnerable topics: “Steered Straight” is a vignette of the collapse from ambition into depression, “You Old Dog” wrestles with fears around change, and “What Are You, A Cop?” questions the ways society tells us to cope with adversity. The closing “Fluff My Pillow,” though, is a pop-infused celebration of the greatest of all coping mechanisms: sleep.
Watch Carly Cosgrove’s Key Studio Session below. The band is on a short run of tour dates with You Blew It! starting tonight in Somerville, Mass — they play day two of the DIY Super Bowl at Philly’s Ukie Club on Saturday — and next month they head out on an extensive fall tour with Real Friends. Full dates and information can be found here.