Speedy Ortiz Release New Single “Plus One”

Ahead of Rabbit Rabbit, their first album in five years, Speedy Ortiz are back again with another single. “Plus One,” which follows “Scabs” and “You S02,” is a roaring tune rife with gnarly guitar riffs and bombastic drums that accentuate bandleader Sadie Dupuis’ singing perfectly. She mines through vignettes of a traumatic childhood, opining: “Songs are for telling and records for show / Stole my split necklace half to see where I’d help you go / The other piece, it doesn’t fit where I hoped.” Rabbit Rabbit is set to be one of the summer’s strongest rock records.

Dupuis says of “Plus One”: “I love touring, but the workaholism it encourages has been a convenient way to repress my feelings. In the pandemic, I found myself ruminating on my estrangement from an abusive family member. I’ve used my songwriting to process other experiences of violence, but had not broached these memories until Rabbit Rabbit. Being able to work on old trauma in therapy and in my writing has helped my boundaries elsewhere, and taught me to move on from exploitative relationships.

“That’s what “Plus One” is about, and it came out pretty quickly as a sad acoustic waltz. I was sitting on the floor of an empty living room, mid-move, and the bare surroundings added a liminal starkness, though some of the imagery is inspired by scenes from West Philly that summer. When I went back to do pre-production, Texan post-hardcore was in my head, so I tried to channel At the Drive-In and Trail of Dead, bands that inspired me as a teen.”

Watch the Dylan Mars Greenberg-directed, campy horror-inspired music video for “Plus One” here.