It’s been nearly three years since Atlanta duo Night Driving in Small Towns dropped their last record, The Bomber, and in the intervening time songwriter Andrea Rogers has remained relative quiet, releasing only a three-song EP in 2015 through her electropop group Star-Splitter. Recently, however, Rogers announced the impending arrival of her second solo record, the blackout sessions, to be released under her andi. pseudonym. According to the press release, most of the instrumentation on the new EP was performed by her NDIST cohort Colby Wright, who also recorded the record at his studio in south Georgia. So for fans hankering for the duo to make a return to the local scene, this is the next best thing.
Today we’re excited to premiere for you the lead single from the project, a haunting slow-burner called “Drive.” Written in the wake of the unexpected dissolution of a nearly decade-long relationship, the song finds Rogers unburdening her heart and searching for some form of resolution over ringing piano chords and a tumbling backbeat. “My heart is a sea, and do you wanna swim across tonight?” she croons on the emotional chorus, a double-edged inquiry that can be read as both a defiant challenge or a desperate invitation.
While it’s possible to interepret the EP’s title as a reflection of its dark and melancholy material, Rogers insists that the blackout sessions was named in reference to the series of boozy recording sessions she shared with Wright while constructing the record. And, in a way, it’s ironic. For all of its hazy heartache and intoxicating hooks, “Drive” is a sobering portrait of love in traumatic transition, and a remarkably seductive one at that. Listen below.
the blackout sessions is out February 17.
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