People You Know

This is the one that opens up a little — not softer, exactly, but wider, with guitar parts that have a melodic generosity that some of Dogleg's more abrasive work deliberately withholds. The song has an anthemic quality that builds without becoming triumphant, arriving somewhere that feels earned rather than manufactured. The interplay between the guitar and bass here is notably warm, grounding what could easily become shrill in something more resonant. Stoitsiadis's vocal performance shifts register more than usual, dropping from a shout into something that feels almost conversational before surging back up, mirroring the lyrical subject — the strange intimacy of people who used to know you well and now know a version of you that no longer exists. It's a song about the gap between who someone was to you and who they've become, or who you've become, and how that gap is neither entirely loss nor entirely neutral. This is part of a generation of bands — Direct Hit!, Empire! Empire!, PUP — working through post-adolescent grief with volume rather than elegance. You reach for this one when you've just seen someone from a different chapter and the drive home afterward is too quiet.