Carly Cosgrove

Rising from the fiercely DIY Philadelphia underground, CARLY COSGROVE graft achingly vulnerable lyrics atop a bed of mathy rhythms, intricate guitar work and a penchant for indie-rock cool meets emo authenticity. Their debut album, 2022’s See You In Chemistry, was, in their own words, the sound of figuring life out in real time, tracing personal growth through anxiety, depression, indecision, and, ultimately, self-actualization – heavy subjects for a band originally formed as a low-stress side-project stopgap in 2018. “Every record feels like me answering the question, ‘How are you doing?’” says singer/guitarist Lucas Naylor. “I don’t know much, but I know myself better than basically anything else.” That quest for the answers to life's big questions is never-ending, and it’s once again front and center on the band’s second album for Wax Bodega, THE CLEANEST OF HOUSES ARE EMPTY, as the trio – Naylor, bassist Helen Barsz and drummer Tyler Kramer – find themselves face to face with the chronic emotional struggles that come with life in the modern age. “In summer 2022, I was diagnosed with a personality disorder,” Naylor explains. “Over time, I subconsciously determined that the best way to eliminate the collateral as I figured things out was to isolate for as long as possible and just sort of shut everyone else out.” This self-induced seclusion gave the singer lots of time to think – and write. As such, the songs on The Cleanest Of Houses Are Empty are overflowingly introspective yet ultimately universally relatable: “Fluff My Pillow” tackles Naylor’s acute lethargy as it bops along with chicken-or-egg philosophy (“Gonna sleep off the headache that I got ‘cause I slept too long”), while the stop-start polyrhythms of first single “You Old Dog” soundtrack his inability to break the habits that led to his unhappiness in the first place. Elsewhere, the wistful “North Star Bar” pays tribute to an iconic Philly rock club while embodying the omnipresent sense of loss that co