Song of the Day: Anxious, "Counting Sheep"

Keeping your horizons (musical or otherwise) expanded gets harder with age, and I like to think I’m a more open-minded listener than most. But sometimes I find myself circling back to the most comfortable stuff possible, even if it is made by a group of dudes who don’t remember 9/11.

So it is not at all shocking that my current favorite band is some guys from my home state who play the kind of anthemic emo that would have made perfect sense next to Jimmy Eat World and Sunny Day Real Estate at the turn of the century. Plus, they are called Anxious, which means I get to buy a T-shirt that has the word Anxious on it. Their debut album Little Green House came out in 2022 and felt like the first great reaction to life during the pandemic. It was sweaty and punchy and full of adenoidal pop sweetness—most every song was right on the precipice of becoming a hands-up anthem.

With their recently-released second album Bambi, they pushed way past that edge. Just about every track feels like a singalong, and the production is clean and nostalgic without feeling retrograde. “Counting Sheep” is one of those songs where other bands’ choruses don’t sound remotely as on point as the verses or the bridge. Everything sounds like a chorus, which I guess makes this the emo “Dude Looks Like a Lady.”