June Body lands their return with a big impact. Their first new single since 2018, “Flickering” kicks off a slew of releases from the band and they’re leaning into it with a particularly heavy punch. It’s easy to spot a June Body single from a mile off, and “Flickering” holds true to that, but this Trojan horse is carrying some lyrics that are prepared to gut you.
The song describes, rather poetically, the rough awakening that Connor James, June Body’s guitarist and vocalist, received one morning. It was a scenario that we all hope is unthinkable but, in hindsight, was more obvious than we can be comfortable with.
“The song itself tells the story of a day waking up to call that an old friend had taken their life, and the ensuing coping mechanisms of those who knew them,” says Connor James. “I still carry the guilt and regret of not having the tools to help them in a time when they were young and being harmed, either covertly or otherwise.
“The song hopefully serves as a reminder that a depressed person rarely looks like a depressed person. Pain often lives deep down, is rooted in our past, and can remain hidden from our friends and family.”
The song is the first to be released from June Body’s upcoming, ominously-titled full-length album, Never Here for Long. The album has been a work in progress since as early as 2018, and many songs had already been thoroughly roadtested before the global event that need not be named. In the Winter of 2020, however, the trio of Connor James, Alexander Callaghan, and Jonny Renken were able to convene in Connor’s living room to hammer out the details before recorded all the guitar, bass, and vocals at their own respective houses, and tracking drums at Ocean Floor with Franc Lopes.
“Doing everything in-house for this release was so important to us because we wanted it to sound like you’re in the room with us, and I think we captured just that,” says Connor.
“The sound of this album certainly doesn’t fit in with the current landscape of big, shiny rock records–but that’s why we love it. It is undeniably June Body in every way. It has a tender vulnerability that might remind one of our first record, Star for You, but it serves as a perfect representation of our progression as a band.”
June Body’s upcoming full-length album, Never Here for Long, is scheduled to drop on October 1st, 2021. Among the content laid out over the coming weeks will also be a series of mini-documentary shorts, filmed by Alex Boyd and Jordan Haines of Spring Tide Productions, that follow June Body throughout their recording process.
Show Dates:
10.16.21 – Halifax, NS @ Gus’ Pun w/ No, It’s Fine.