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Jun 10, 2025 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Julia Discenza

New York City and Cambridge-based indie folk trio Bold Forbes are back this year with a pair of new singles, following after their 2018 full-length debut album, High Time. After an extended hiatus, the band shared “Make Away,” which expanded upon the earnest and plaintive sheen of their debut, reintroducing the band with swelling chamber folk arrangements, swooning vocal harmonies, and a sweltering alt-country edge. Today, the band are sharing another new track, “Arroyo Seco,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“Arroyo Seco” pares back the orchestral expanse of the band’s last single, instead sauntering through dusty and psychedelic folk detours. The band’s verdant string arrangements have been stripped away until delicate guitar lines, lonesome fiddle cries, and creaking atmospherics are all that is left. The band lets their instrumentation echo around the negative space, conjuring a moonlit desert waltz in the shadowy haze. Meanwhile, their lyrics similarly carry a foreboding dramatic undercurrent: “And I don’t know where you come from / The creek is waiting for the flood / No, I don’t know where you come from / Rivers of water and ruby blood.”

The band says of the track, “‘Arroyo Seco’ is a meditation on cosmic justice, written over the course of several walks in the Brentwood neighborhood of Austin, TX, during the high point of the Covid pandemic. The lyrics were inspired by the imagery from central Texas’s beautiful dry creeks, Exodus, and suburban living rooms, echoing in the creaking, soaring, aching arrangements for the acoustic and electric guitars, fiddle, and bass.”

Check out the song below, out everywhere now.