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 comes with change.

“Change is uncomfortable,” Naylor says. “But we’re all constantly changing; it’s all cyclical. When I was a younger, more naïve person, I thought everything I had would last forever: my bands, my relationships, all of it. But eventually you learn to accept that things aren’t permanent, and that’s terrifying.”

Recorded at Philadelphia’s iconic Studio 4 with Justin Bartlett (Bartees Strange, Movements, L.S. Dunes), whom Naylor had known from his time at Temple University performing in jazz ensembles, the album extracts the kinetic energy of the band’s live show – seen on tours with The Wonder Years, Hot Mulligan and Knuckle Puck – and distills it into their most fully realized sonic offering to date.

From the frantic guitar work on “Zoloft” and the leather jacket garage-rock sheen of “Random Dancing” to “What Are You, A Cop,” which sounds like Motion City Soundtrack filtering “Everlong” through their idiosyncratic rock tilt, The Cleanest Of Houses Are Empty is the type of record Carly Cosgrove simply couldn’t have made last time – not musically, and certainly not emotionally. They needed to live, through hard touring and harder life experiences.

“We purposely wanted to make a big, very live-sounding record,” Kramer explains. “Our live show is the best way to hear our music because of the energy we’re able to harness on stage. It can be hard to translate to an album, so we specifically worked in a room we knew could capture that.”

“We worked to balance guitar work with rhythm, lyrics and melody rather than doubling down on music theory” Barsz adds, noting the band has, in the past, been tagged with a Midwest emo label they don’t feel particularly encapsulates their sound. “Lucas was coming up with some of his heaviest, strongest lyrical work, and that allowed us to move toward alternate chord voicings and the more harmonic side of things.”

Much has been written about the trio’s penchant for irreverence, from their name (a portmanteau of Nickelodeon’s iCarly and its lead, Miranda Cosgrove) to their song titles, which up until this point have all referenced iCarly and Drake & Josh. It’s an easy talking point, often the first thing outlets and fans pick up on, but the band themselves have worked to step away from seeing the world solely through slime-tinted glasses.

“We had a discussion about the Nickelodeon thing,” Barsz says. "We tried to put some distance between ourselves and that this time around. Ultimately, we just want good song titles – however that presents itself. Some of the references are more muted now, because we want the music to be the main focus.”

Thus, there’s no laugh-track touchpoint for the album’s title; rather, it’s the stark summation of Naylor’s experiences tackling his demons – ultimately emerging on the other side with a newfound perspective and empathy that’s poised to guide him and his bandmates forward in this new era.

“When I was going through it, I shut everyone else out of my ‘house’ so as not to feel challenged at all by anyone. Soon you realize that’s not how life should work: You should want to put yourself in a place where you can exist around people without feeling threatened or scared. The silver lining of this record is I’m proud of where I ended up, even if it took a long time to get there.”

He laughs. “I’m actually going to retroactively say it does tie in to Drake & Josh, when they walk into an empty house after getting robbed. We made this band; we can make our own rules.” XX
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 the sound of figuring life out in real time, tracing personal growth through anxiety, depression, and 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 once again front and center on the band’s second album, THE CLEANEST OF HOUSES ARE EMPTY, as Naylor, bassist Helen Barsz and drummer Tyler Kramer find themselves face to face with the chronic emotional struggles of life in the modern age.

From the stop-start polyrhythms of first single “You Old Dog” and garage-rock sheen of “Random Dancing” and “What Are You, A Cop,” which sounds like Motion City Soundtrack filtering “Everlong” through their idiosyncratic rock tilt, The Cleanest Of Houses is the type of record Carly Cosgrove simply couldn’t have made last time – not musically, and certainly not emotionally. They needed to live, through hard touring and harder life experiences.