As an openly queer, progressive band in a deeply red state, Riley! have always built their own version of belonging. That spirit runs throughout To Live and Die in the American South, from its very title to the song themselves – deeply personal stories of isolation, connection and the eternal fight to feel seen. Outside the walls of their hometown, though, they’ve built connections that have made survival possible, growing alongside a fanbase that has found itself reflected in every sweat-soaked note as they’ve carved out their own communities.
Watch the video for Another Round of Radical ‘Ritas, Please (ft. Tades Sanville // Hot Mulligan) here:
“This is the first song we wrote with the intention of it being a part of this record. We all wanted to try writing a more upbeat, poppy track. I took a lot of inspiration from modern pop songs that I like and came up with the idea for the verses. We played around with 4 or 5 different ideas or choruses, but ultimately decided the heaviest version just felt right and ended up with what you hear now. I think this is when we decided to start asking our friends to do features all over this EP and felt like Tades would kill it on this track. He initially was supposed to only do one part but through some miscommunication, he ended up recording vocals over what was supposed to be an instrumental break. Sounds badass so we kept it and he still recorded the part we initially intended for him to do. hooray double feature,” says the band.
Riley! are the kind of band that only could have come from somewhere far off the map – making music shaped by isolation, boredom, anxiety, friendship, and dreaming about what lies beyond the limits of their blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hometown. Their details may belong to the Rio Grande Valley deep in South Texas, but the feelings amplified through their hyper-modern spin on Midwest emo have carried them around the world, from self-booked headlining tours and bills with genre heavyweights.
Having formed with the current lineup in 2020, what’s followed on albums like 2021’s Already Fucked and 2024’s Keep Your Cool has been a steady transformation from scrappy cult favourite to one of modern emo’s most compelling young bands on the strength of twinkly textures from high-capoed guitars, raucous rhythm section energy and Bluhm’s highly personal storytelling.
Now, Riley! has levelled up on their Pure Noise Records debut, To Live And Die In The American South. Recorded in Austin, TX, alongside producer Phil Odom (Militarie Gun, Say Anything and a protegee of Grammy-winning producer Will Yip), the five-song EP finds Riley! embracing a more finely harnessed sound without losing any of their edge. “We were going for something a little bit more polished,” Bluhm explains. “Not everyone is necessarily into screaming emo music, so we wanted to make things a bit more digestible.”
That range comes into focus from the opening swell of Roll for Initiative, bursting in with off-kilter, syncopated energy and a thread of existential dread, while Another Round of Radical ‘Ritas, Please (ft. Tades Sanville of Hot Mulligan) zeroes in on the quiet spiral of feeling left out and left behind.
Elsewhere, Two Bucks finds the band leaning into melody, its high, soaring harmonies bolstered by Eric Egan of Heart Attack Man; Backseat Bartender, featuring Gabe Wood of Saturdays at Your Place, taps into classic emo influences, and closer 73 Summers trades urgency for something more devastating and reflective as Bluhm wrestles with grief, loss and impermanence.
Riley! will be heading out on their headline run in North America starting this July before UK shows supporting label mates Ben Quad.
Riley! are vocalist/guitarist Ryan Bluhm (they/them), bassist Kris Gallardo (he/him) and drummer Cesar “Izzy” Izaguirre (they/them).
