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Mar 12, 2025 Web Exclusive By Frank Valish

Anxious’ sophomore album, Bambi, aims to expand the Connecticut five-piece’s sound beyond the more straightforward emo/punk sound of its 2022 debut, Little Green House. And while Anxious still reliably recalls the sound of early aughts emo, Bambi is less Thursday and more Get Up Kids in its approach. Which is to say that despite sacrificing some of the visceral immediacy of its debut, it has substituted it with a broader palette of emotional post-whatever punkishness to its post-adolescent musings.

While a song like “Bambi’s Theme” is as furious a screed as anything on Little Green House, a track like “Some Girls,” coincidentally the track that immediately follows, mutes the aggression in favor of pop rock melodicism with only a hint of instrumental fire. Songs like “Counting Sheep” split the difference, combining instrumental heft with “doo doo doo” backing vocals that accentuate a melody that’ll stick in your head for days. “Audrey Go Again” sounds practically orchestral in its shimmering, falsetto-led balladeering before one flips the side and is submerged once again in driving drum/bass/guitar thrust with the positively Sunny Day Real Estate-esque “Head & Spine.” And so it goes with Bambi, an engaging melding of the fast-paced frenetic with the melodic, a more nuanced step forward for a band continuing to evolve. (www.runforcoverrecords.com)

Author rating: 6.5/10