Radio On

There is a locked-in momentum to this song that feels less like listening and more like being propelled. Ex Hex build their sound around Mary Timony's guitar work, which here hits a sweet spot between Thin Lizzy muscularity and power-pop precision — the riffs interlock with a confidence that never tips into showing off. The tempo is brisk without being frantic, the rhythm section locked in a groove that makes the whole thing feel inevitable rather than rushed. There is something almost cinematic about it, the way the chorus opens up and lets air in after the tighter verse passages. Emotionally it occupies that particular register of excitement shot through with a faint wistfulness, the feeling of motion itself as a kind of freedom. Timony's voice has a directness to it, unadorned and slightly husky, delivering the melody without ornament because the melody doesn't need any. The lyrical territory is the open road and the radio itself — transmission, frequency, the act of tuning in — which makes the song feel self-aware in the best way, a rock song that knows what rock songs are for. This is music for driving with the windows down at dusk, for the moment a trip begins and everything still feels possible. It belongs firmly in the lineage of great American guitar rock while sounding like it was made by someone who absorbed all of that and then wrote something genuinely their own.