This is the stretch where spring flings turn to summer crushes, and Alien Boy are back to provide a buoyant guitar-pop soundtrack to this exciting annual transition. The Portland band unveiled infectious new single “Pictures of You” this past Thursday (April 10) via Get Better Records, and the upbeat and magnetic track is the latest from the quartet’s forthcoming new album You Wanna Fade?, set for May release. Vocalist and guitarist Sonia Weber says “Pictures of You” is “a song about hanging on the telephone, what all the best songs are about — and what makes for a little bit of an obsessive crush. A little bit about that rush of a new feeling and feeling desperate to catch someone’s attention.” Weber also cites Third Eye Blind’s self-titled album and Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream as loose sonic blueprints for the new record — “I really wanted to capture that kind of grandness,” she adds, “the kind of thing that has a lot of dimension and isn’t actually that concise” — so consider our attention caught. Put “Pictures of You” on your high-stakes mixtape below.
Photo Credit: Frank Martinez