The Front Bottoms’ Brian Sella deviates from the emo-inflected folk-punk for an exciting first solo record with ‘Well I Mean.’

Stream: ‘Well I Mean’ – Sella

“Last year, I got depressed / that’s not the point, but nothing is,” Brian Sella sings on “Damage Control,” one of the most energetic tracks on his debut solo album Well I Mean.

Throughout Sella’s debut solo album, he drops these existential anecdotes that tackle anxiety, morality, and some of life’s other big questions. The New Jersey singer/songwriter feels like he’s now scratching for some answers, yet feeling satisfied if he ends up with more questions than answers.

For the past 20 years, Sella has made his biggest mark as the singer and guitarist for indie pop-punk greats The Front Bottoms. Of course, TFB have tackled their own stretch of heavy issues, like the dread that comes with growing up on 2020’s “leaf pile” or unwanted pregnancies on “Lone Star” or faltering economic opportunities on “Flashlight.” Still, many TFB songs feel like they come with a nod and a wink, where even when they’re singing about a heavy topic, they might still throw a toy tambourine into the crowd so people can shake it at the chorus. These songs usually come with fleshed out full-band arrangements and punchy choruses. Well I Mean is a clear deviation from that sound, and it’s welcome to hear.

Sella’s first solo album feels much more like a twee indie album that undoubtedly would’ve made waves on a different side of tumblr during its heyday. The album’s musical DNA skews more towards Kimya Dawson than AJJ. Power chords are replaced by piano links. Horns usually blend into the background instead of blaring alongside the main-riffs. Of course, there are some elements that TFB fans will see similarities in. Plenty of staccato chords and the occasional spoken word interlude that sounds like it was lifted right from a voicemail inbox.

Well I Mean does scratch a more mature itch lyrically than Sella’s work in The Front Bottoms.

Even though The Front Bottoms have explored aging and mortality on Going Grey and In Sickness and In Flames, the band’s songs usually make those things sound like the type of problems that you can put off with a few beers and a fun night with your friends. Sella’s first solo album is about what happens when you’re ready to unpack that emotional baggage. “American Shark” is a song about questioning your own morals set to arpeggios and pinched harmonics. Where do those questions end up leading you to? Apparently, “South Dakota,” where you can contemplate your feelings under a wide-open sky on the highway.

The big South Dakota sky
Swallowing up my text messages
Messing with my WiFi reception
Can’t tell if I’m teaching or learning a lesson
Enough to keep my friends and family guessing

It’s interesting to watch artists grow from voicing their youthful anxieties to their adult ones. “Perfect Worth It” is a feeling that has been captured in many Front Bottoms songs that would inevitably get blared out of windows on drives through the suburbs. Still, it’s done in this stripped back way, and Sella sounds like he’s ruminating on his questions in a more adult and mature way.

Ultimately, you learn that maybe some of those anxieties and worries won’t go away, but when you’re as talented as Brian Sella, you can find countless interesting ways to share those spirals with others.

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 © William Macintosh

Well I Mean

an album by Sella