In Tommy Lefroy’s Rivals EP, the indie duo Tessa Mouzourakis and Wynter Bethel wage battle on societal expectations of ladies. The 6-track undertaking, out March 10, arrives as winter melts into spring. Regardless of their newest work marking a complicated inventive period, the band’s ever-playful lyricism and deliberations on adolescence stay on the core of Rivals. Additionally current: their needlepoint give attention to wresting cultural presumptions of womanhood. “Even calling it ‘Rivals,’ we’re poking enjoyable on the women-pitted-against-each-other trope,” Mouzourakis says in an interview with Bethel, each of whom communicate to me from Montreal only a few hours earlier than stepping on stage (they’re at the moment within the midst of a North American tour supporting Samia throughout 22 dates and over a dozen states).

Though they’ve grown in recognition, with streaming numbers within the thousands and thousands, Tommy Lefroy hasn’t sacrificed the suave nature of their songwriting. Bethel and Mouzourakis are set on guaranteeing those that scream again their lyrics to them know they’re not alone. Relatability, between artists and viewers, is especially important to Tommy Lefroy within the Unhappy Indie Woman music area. “As soon as something is a trope, after all it’s a generalization and it’s unfair,” Bethel says earlier than stating they however determine with the label. “All through society, the whispers of ladies have modified issues,” she provides. “Ladies are speaking about issues and giving area for conversions that aren’t in any other case [acknowledged]. As a lot because it’s a humorous trope, it’s additionally a secret weapon, particularly for younger individuals to interact in a tradition that addresses psychological well being brazenly.” In that regard, Tommy Lefroy has cast an area within the indie music scene the place womanhood, queerness, and frank discussions of sensitivity could be heard. As Mouzourakis places it: “Creating this group that feels extra bonded than any group of people that like a sure musician, we have now one thing to speak about—and an understanding from the get-go.”

Tommy Lefroy’s 2021 EP, Flight Danger, created within the quietude of the pandemic, catapulted the duo onto TikTok For You pages with the breakout observe “The Trigger.” (“Flight Danger was us asking if we may, Rivals is understanding we will,” Bethel explains.) The brand new EP sees diaristic prose kind an genuine coming-of-age reverie. Tommy Lefroy purges poisonous expectations on the folk-like music “The Mess” (“I believed being a girl was cleansing up the mess / however I’m, I’m the mess”) after which ruminates on debilitating struggles with psychological well being on the upbeat “Worst Case Child” (“dysphoria melts me after I get residence”).

Rivals is abound with stomach-punching one-liners that precede cathartic choruses. “There was much more fascinated with what lyrics we wish to sing together with individuals—issues we didn’t even suppose was doable when writing Flight Danger,” Bethel says of the brand new report. The undertaking started in the summertime of 2021, when the songwriter-producer pair have been scuffling with imposter syndrome as they transitioned from songwriting for others to being the face of their very own music. Illustrating that exact dichotomy, the EP’s opener “Canine Eat Canine,” a guitar-driven anthemic ballad, begins with: “I’ve obtained what it takes / And I really feel nothing in any respect.” Residing the dream of touring their very own music collided with reconciling “unworthiness and disconnect.” They observe Rivals was therapeutic on this sense, an opportunity “to explain what feels generally indescribable.”

Northern Michigan-raised Bethel and Vancouver-repping Mouzourakis first linked over a shared love of boygenius (the indie trio that includes Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus). They bridged the Atlantic gulf between L.A. and London, which separated them throughout the pandemic, with youthful idyllicism and impeccable harmonies. They’re a united entrance, a lot in order that all through our name they end one another’s sentences and immediate each other’s anecdotes.

The pair can be bonded by their self-described standing as “huge literary nerds.” Mouzourakis and Bethel’s soundscape is packed filled with references to historic, literary, and private anecdotes. Even the band identify is a literary nom de plume; Tommy Lefory is a nod to Jane Austen’s personal real-life Mr. Darcy, Thomas Langlois Lefroy. Mouzourakis additionally says their course of is akin to English classes in class: “deconstructing every line and peeling again the layers. That’s one thing we attempt to do within the music, too.”

Like inventive writing lecturers, the pair is stuffed with examples. On “Slick,” the road “discover ways to rage earlier than I die” refers to “The Aeneid” by Virgil. (“There’s lots of imagery of armor and combativeness, this sense of a name to arms,” Mouzourakis explains.) Bethel furthers on “Worst Case Child,” a reference to Dylan Thomas’s “Altarwise by Owl Gentle,” with the phrase “a killer with a jaw for information”—that was taken from a heated dialog with the person who impressed the music. Self-referentiality arises, too, with inserted voice memos—the atmospheric rumble of a thunderstorm and a Parisian priest scolding whispering college students—embedded from their lives into instrumentals. In these private touches, Tommy Lefroy emerges from the chrysalis of self-conscious youth to inform the tales of adolescent womanhood: a journey of heartbreak and therapeutic.