In sports slang, "the yips" refers to the performance anxiety and self-doubt that can overcome even the most seasoned athlete. But, as Petey USA attests on his similarly titled third album, it’s also an affliction that can strike regular folk who've never set foot on a playing field. The Yips — a mix of alt-pop, pop-punk, indie electronica, and heartland rock produced by Chris Walla — is an acutely observed collection of songs about the precariously employed, quarterlife-crisis sufferers struggling to make it through another day with their hopes and dreams intact.   A concept album of sorts, The Yips is set in the kind of dive bar that provides the only sign of nightlife in a sleepy town — wood-panelling, flickering beer logos, dollar-store Christmas lights up all year. Each song represents a different table of patrons engaged in a heart-to-heart talk. "The album's about going through a period where just nothing's clicking," the Michigan-bred, Los Angeles-based, genre-mashing dynamo explains, "so you go to a bar where everyone can collect themselves and get drunk." In other words, The Yips is a no-judgement zone — the only rule is that you walk out of Petey's bar feeling a lot better than you did when you came in.   On the opening title track, Petey kicks open the saloon doors with a Gary Numanesque electro-funk beat and partakes in an extended barstool-therapy session — the ensuing sax solo signals the moment where things start to get emotionally swirly. The heartracing pop-punk of "Ask Someone Else" infuses the night with some adrenaline and sparkling synth-rock anthem "The Milkman" gives Petey’s bar concept a genuine sense of communal, infectiously rowdy warmth as he lets loose busted-up sing-alongs like, "Here’s to being authentic, three cheers for being yourself / What if the most accurate version of me is acting like somebody else?”   The singer-songwriter also revels in tender moments of boozy vulnerability. Atop the gliding War on Drugs-like rhythm of "Breathing the Same Air," Petey turns our attention to two beer-drinking buddies who are too dejected to say what's on their minds, but take comfort in each other's silent company, while the heartland-rock anthem "Model Train Town" puts us inside the ticking time-bomb brain of a man whose anxious attachment to a partner inspires apocalyptic thoughts.   The Yips heralds yet another exciting new evolutionary stage for an artist who's always channeled his anxious thoughts into exuberant energy. A pop-punk kid who cut his teeth in the early-2010s midwest emo trenches, Petey introduced himself on 2021’s Lean Into Life as a DIY musical omnivore updating his formative Warped Tour influences with healthy doses of Modest Mousey indie-rock, dancefloor-ready synth-pop, glitchy electronic textures, and even a touch of country music. But atop that shapeshifting sonic backdrop, Petey showcased his preternatural gift for impassioned, self-deprecating storytelling leavened by a sardonic sense of humor.   With the 2023 follow-up, USA, Petey cemented his status as the rare artist who’s just as comfortable touring theaters with Irish indie heroes Two Door Cinema Club as opening stadium shows for young country star Zach Bryan. But, as the genre-switching maverick will tell you, professional fulfillment doesn't keep the yips at bay. "I don't make a ton of money and getting paid is not guaranteed," he says. "Every year it feels like there's more pressure to keep up."   With The Yips, Petey deals with the heightened stakes by tapping more deeply into those feelings of insecurity while yielding his most eclectic and ambitious musical statement to date. For Petey, the album represents the bucket-list fulfilment of a life-long dream: to work with producer Walla (Pinegrove, Ratboys, Snarls), formerly of Death Cab for Cutie. "That’s one of the few bands whose discography I know inside and out," he says, "I’ve watched documentaries on how he made Death Cab records like Transatlanticism. So he was my number-one choice."   With Walla expertly shaping the soundtrack, Petey's lyrics double as an anthropological study into a generation of men chewed up and spit out by the American Dream, probing their sense of social isolation, economic unease, and self-loathing. But — as demonstrated on The Yips' tender piano-ballad closer, "I Am Not Cowboy," which posits that sometimes you feel better after the yips pass, and sometimes you really, really don’t — he does so with a keen awareness of his privilege and an innate aversion to the grievance-fueled politics of the manosphere.   As a disillusioned man in his 30s, "populating a bar with confused guys trying to figure it out" just made sense to Petey. "I don't want to get into the toxic part of masculinity, but I also want to avoid the other side of it that weaponizes therapy-talk," he says, cutting through the fragility of now with some welcome common sense: "I'm just singing about being there for your friends."

Alex Cameron rewrites the rules of intimacy. Whether it be as a photographer, songwriter, or performer, the Sydney-native spins unflinching truths through singular fictional narratives, chameleonic as he slips in and out of the mindsets of contemporary villains, the people we hold at arm’s length (for good reason). His minimal debut Jumping the Shark offers a synth-driven understated exploration of deadbeat parents, failing showmen, and all that comes with the dark, seediness of show biz. 2017’s Forced Witness, produced by Jonathan Rado and including collaborations with The Killers’ Brandon Flowers, zeroes in on the alpha male. Plush, glimmering ‘80s pop, all synths and sax, skitters over the dark underbellies of Bad Men, the toxic masculinity lurking in corners of the internet or in pubs, and the feeling that even if you want to, you can’t look away. And why would you? Across his work, Cameron inhabits the darkness effortlessly -- his solution to the mayhem is a danceable and dangerous earnestness, vivid portraits of misfits’ views of the world. Known for a red-hot live show, thanks to both Cameron’s dancing chops and his chemistry with business associate and sax player Roy Molloy, Cameron and associates have spent the better part of the last several years touring globally, both as headliners and as support for the Killers, establishing themselves as bonafide road dogs and building up a die-hard fan base. Because in these chaotic times when we aren’t able to look away, Cameron is offering us a pure account as he’s seen it.