Smush have announced their second album, i’ll always wish, and dropped the lead single “milkweed butterfly” to mark the occasion. The Brooklyn-via-Vancouver band first caught attention earlier this year with their covers EP Standards, which turned Norah Jones and Owl City tracks into something glitchy and shoegazy. Now they’re back with original material, and the new single suggests they’ve kept the fire lit.
The quartet — Emily Borrowman on bass and vocals, Atley King on guitars, Rudi Neubrander on drums, and Wilson Woods on keys — have built a track that fuses grungy guitars with a skittering drum-and-bass pulse. It’s a sound that feels both reckless and tender at once.
From Covers to Originals
Standards was the record that showed what Smush could do with other people’s songs. It took familiar modern classics — Big Rig, Hotline TNT, and Field Medic — and gave them a glitchy, dreamy twist. The EP demonstrated a band comfortable with genre-blurring, and the single “milkweed butterfly” continues that approach.
The album is due early next year, and the band have released a full tracklist alongside the single. The record runs nine tracks, and “milkweed butterfly” sits in the middle of the running order, at number six.
The Song’s Origin Story
King spoke about the song’s origins in a press release. He explained that “milkweed butterfly” was written from the perspective of a child experiencing anxiety and depression, with no way to understand or contextualize those feelings. For Borrowman, the process of making the song was a way to make sense of the instability of immigrating to the United States.
It’s a heavy subject for a pop-leaning single, but the music doesn’t lean into grimness. The track stays restless and skittering, with a rhythm that feels like it’s trying to escape its own tempo.
The Video
The single arrives with a visual companion directed by Henry Nelson. The video shows people fencing while the band plays in a small store.
The fencing imagery is precise and controlled, while the music underneath is anything but. It’s a smart visual counterpart to a song about instability.
Tracklist and Release Date
Here’s the full running order for i’ll always wish, along with the release date:
| # | Track |
|---|---|
| 1 | “mourning dove” |
| 2 | “john dearly” |
| 3 | “you’d stay” |
| 4 | “scissors” |
| 5 | “is this why” |
| 6 | “milkweed butterfly” |
| 7 | “u too” |
| 8 | “dog song” |
| 9 | “true” |
The album is out 1/22.
Our Take
The single is a strong indicator of where the album is headed. It’s a track that rewards repeat listens, and it suggests the full record will be similarly restless and layered.
The band have proven themselves capable of reinventing classic pop songs on Standards. Now they’re showing they can do the same with their own material. The drum-and-bass pulse on “milkweed butterfly” is a distinctive element of the track.
The video adds another dimension. The fencing imagery is precise and controlled, while the music underneath is anything but. It’s a smart visual counterpart to a song about instability.
The album’s release date is set for early next year, and the band have given fans a strong first taste of what’s to come.
The tracklist offers a record that moves through different moods and textures, from the mournful opener to the restless closer.
For a band that started by reworking Norah Jones and Owl City, Smush have found their own sound. The single proves it.
See the video the story is built around at Stereogum.
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