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Apr 02, 2025 By Caleb Campbell

Chicago indie outfit COURSE has spent the past few years developing their glassy and synth-laden style, bridging synth pop, singer/songwriter folk, and dream pop with their 2021 debut, A Late Hour, and their 2023 follow-up, Tight Feathers. However, during that time, singer/songwriter Jess Robbins was struggling with debilitating chronic pain until she was finally diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitisーan autoimmune disorder affecting the spine and joints. COURSE’s latest album, Hue Mirror, finds Robbins navigating her diagnosis, meditating on the uncertainty and pain the future holds, contrasted with moments of clarity and hope.

As Robbins says, “Hue Mirror is a somber album about anticipating aging with a chronic illness, which means accepting the changes that come and truly experiencing life. I wrote this for others living with chronic pain and illness—for anyone facing that kind of impending, unknown future.”

COURSE shared the album’s title track earlier this year, and today they’re back with another new single, “Feeling Alive,” premiering with Under the Radar.

Although much of the album explores the thorny and emotionally laden experience of living with chronic illness, “Feeling Alive” offers a welcome detour into serene folk balladry. Robbins’ vocals settle atop glassy synths and swaying acoustic guitar as her melodies sprawl outwards, stretching dreamily as though she is waking from a restful sleep to greet a new day. Similarly, the track’s lyrics frame these placid, sunlit mornings as a much-needed respite from the day’s pain: “Push through the morning sun, the waves are on their way / I feel the heat, the constant beat, the temperature away / Can the day awake? / Feeling alive today.”

Robbins explains, “I wrote this song a few months after my diagnosis when I had come to terms with everything, for the most part, and was feeling better. I started to work out, lift weights, and walk more. I was feeling more like myself. This is probably the most hopeful song on the album. It touches on how it takes time in the morning to feel like myself and bring all the stiffness down in my back, ‘can the day awake?’ And then when it does, I feel alive again and can forget about this horrible disease for the day.”

Check out the song below. Hue Mirror is due out everywhere on April 25th.