Charly Bliss Fall to the Feeling on New Single/Video, “Hard to Believe”

Brooklyn-based quartet Charly Bliss have debuted the third single from their forthcoming album Young Enough, an infectious ode to bad relationships called “Hard to Believe.” The song comes accompanied by a video depicting your average Charly Bliss band practice, with some funny and unsettling—let’s go with fun-settling—touches mixed in.

“‘Hard to Believe’ is a song about being addicted to a bad relationship, and the endless cycle of trying and failing to end one,” explains frontwoman Eva Hendricks. ”[Drummer Sam Hendricks] wrote the guitar riff very early on in the writing process of Young Enough and we’ve always been obsessed with playing it because it’s so insanely catchy.”

It certainly is. “Hard to Believe” is Charly Bliss power-pop in its purest form, an effervescent rocker that goes down like a shotgunned soda. As is customary for the band, the song’s bubbly instrumental blast belies harrowing emotional turbulence, a heavy weight masked by lightness: “I’m kissing everything that moves / I’m kissing anything that takes me far away from you,” sings Hendricks, unflinching in laying her conflicting feelings bare.

Of the video itself—which finds Charly Bliss performing through distractions that include grape soda, a photo of the sky and a menacing masked stalker—Hendricks explains:

We shot the video on 35mm film over two days with our close friend Henry Kaplan 24 hours after returning from SXSW. Henry did a spectacular job of incorporating each of our personalities into this video, as well as providing a slightly fantastical, but ultimately realistic portrayal of a typical band practice. While we’re running songs, each band-member usually has their own inner-monologue running of either things they’re distracted by, or things they’d rather be doing. This video feels extremely “us” and I don’t think we could have made it with anyone else.

“Hard to Believe” follows previous Young Enough singles “Chatroom” and “Capacity,” which came out in March and April, respectively. The band’s new album, meanwhile, due May 10 on Barsuk Records, follows their acclaimed 2017 debut LP Guppy, which Paste recently ranked among the very best releases from Barsuk’s first two decades as a label.

Check out “Hard To Believe” and the band’s 2017 Paste Studio session below, and find their tour dates further down.

Charly Bliss Tour Dates:

May
03 – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Cinetol
04 – Hamburg, Germany @ Hafenklang
05 – Berlin, Germany @ Cassiopeia
07 – Paris, France @ La Boule Noire
09 – Manchester, U.K. @ Night People
10 – Leeds, U.K. @ Headrow House
11 – Brighton, U.K. @ The Great Escape
13 – London, U.K. @ The Garage

June
06 – Philadelphia, Pa. @ The Foundry
07 – Washington, D.C. @ U Street Music Hall
08 – Hamden, Conn. @ Space Ballroom
09 – Cambridge, Mass. @ The Sinclair
11 – Cleveland, Ohio @ Beachland Ballroom
12 – Detroit, Mich. @ Loving Touch
14 – Cincinnati, Ohio @ Top Cats
15 – Chicago, Ill. @ Lincoln Hall
16 – Minneapolis, Minn. @ 7th Street Entry
18 – Denver, Colo. @ Marquis Theater
19 – Salt Lake City, Utah @ Urban Lounge
21 – Portland, Ore. @ Holocene
22 – Seattle, Wash. @ The Crocodile
24 – Oakland, Calif. @ The New Parish
27 – Los Angeles, Calif. @ Lodge Room
28 – Anaheim, Calif. @ Chain Reaction
29 – San Diego, Calif. @ The Casbah
30 – Phoenix, Ariz. @ The Rebel Lounge

July
02 – Dallas, Texas @ Cambridge Room (House of Blues)
03 – Austin, Texas @ Stubb’s BBQ Indoors
05 – Houston, Texas @ Bronze Peacock (House of Blues)
06 – New Orleans, La. @ Gasa Gasa
07 – Atlanta, Ga. @ The Masquerade Purgatory
09 – Nashville, Tenn. @ Mercy Lounge
12 – New York, N.Y. @ Bowery Ballroom
19-21 – Wooyung, Australia @ Splendour in the Grass
26 – Montreal, Que. @ Montreal 77