By now you should’ve learned that the best sort of pop songs are the ones that come disguised as a loving hand, but wind up knocking you on your ass instead. With the release of their debut LP just days away, we’re still trying to wrap our heads around True Blossom and what sort of band they want to be. But so long as they keep offering up tracks that are as smooth and beguiling as “Flu Punks,” we’ll remain content to succumb to the hazy afterglow of their bright and poignant compositions.

Opening in a cascading wave of lavish synths, the song’s billowing atmospherics and reverence for ‘80s synthpop would seem to conjure an aura of celestial transcendence. But then vocalist Sophie Cox comes floating into the mix, and while her dreamy vocals and bubbly hooks only seem to add to the rapturous daze, her words of admonishment for a potentially abusive former lover anchors the song in far darker and tempestuous waters.

“The arrangement is obviously inspired by swing beat songs like ‘Groove Me,’ but it’s also supposed to sound like the type of song that would have played over the closing credits of some soapy anime on Toonami while you ate your Pop-Tarts or whatever,” says guitarist Chandler Kelley. “The lyrics are Sophie just kind of declining to forgive and forget someone that wronged her. She’s doing the other thing instead. I wanted to call the song ‘Exes (Bold as Loathing)’ but no one thought that was funny but me.”

Directed by James Patrick Mayer of Red Sea, the video accentuates the song’s lush futurism with a series of computer-generated graphics coated in a palette of vivid pinks and blues. Encased in a seemingly endless maze of passages and stairs, a lone figures marches continuously through the interstellar labyrinth, only to encounter a series of statue-like beings that shatter and crumble into tiny fragments as they are approached. Only when our protagonist ceases their restless movement and enters a meditative trance do they find communion with a host of other figures as the assemblage of bodies tumble and spiral through the cosmos.

Watch/listen above.

Heater is out Jan. 14. Pre-orders are available here.

True Blossom will perform on Wed., Jan. 16 at the Masquerade alongside Gabby’s World and Yowler. Doors open at 7 p.m. Admission is $12. All ages.

More Info
Facebook: @trueblossomatlanta
Instagram: @trueblossomband