Weird Nightmare’s Alex Edkins roars into the light on ‘Hoopla,’ an invigorating sophomore album whose sunlit power-pop and fuzzed-up voltage hit with raw rock charge. Its irresistibly catchy closing track “Where I Belong” brings that restless rush home, driving road-worn ache into a stadium-sized anthem about love, absence, and the cost of staying in motion. After nearly two decades as METZ’s frontman, Weird Nightmare is Edkins’ about-face – a brighter, hook-laced outlet where melody and harmony take center stage without losing the restless intensity that’s fueled his whole career.
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Stream: “Where I Belong” – Weird Nightmare
“Why the hell am I still on the road? I’ve got a girl and a son back at home.”
Every open road asks for a sacrifice – the miles blur together, highway lines stretching endlessly beneath a sky that never seems to settle. There’s a peculiar loneliness in that constant motion, where gas station lights, late-night diners, and fleeting conversations become familiar landmarks in a life lived between destinations.
On “Where I Belong,” Weird Nightmare sends that cost racing through a sprightly, aching power-pop rush – bright enough to grin through, raw enough to sting. The closing track off Alex Edkins’ sophomore Weird Nightmare album Hoopla bursts with Weezer-like melodic punch and a dusting of Tom Petty road-worn warmth, all peppy drums, glowing guitars, and hooks that hit fast and hard. But beneath that charm is a blunt question with no easy answer: What happens when the dream that keeps you alive is the same dream that keeps taking you away from home?
“Why the hell am I still on the road?
I’ve got a girl and a son back at home
When the dream that
you dreamt ain’t enough
When the days and
the years call your bluff”
Out now via Sub Pop Records and Dine Alone Records in Canada, Hoopla captures Alex Edkins stepping deeper into the sunlit fuzz and tightly wound melodicism of Weird Nightmare – a world far removed from the pulverizing noise-rock force of METZ, the band he has fronted for nearly two decades.
Here, the songs are short, sharp, and delightfully hook-forward, trading blunt-force impact for jangle, crunch, harmony, and heart. “Where I Belong” may be one of the album’s most instantly inviting moments, but it also cuts straight to the emotional center of the project: Nostalgia without retreat, optimism without denial, and the strange restlessness of a life built around motion.
“Hoopla is a bona fide studio album where as the first album was more of a document/home recording that captured the feeling of the pandemic,” Edkins tells Atwood Magazine. “Completely different states of mind. Hoopla is quite sentimental lyrically, there is a lot of looking back at my younger years. I think I was feeling nostalgic but it’s also really optimistic which is new for me.”
Edkins’ 2022 self-titled Weird Nightmare debut was its own kind of release valve: A self-produced, lo-fi home recording made during the pandemic, released after years of METZ’s pulverizing force but driven by a different impulse entirely. The album introduced Weird Nightmare as a place for blown-out hooks, distorted guitars, bright pop melodies, and massive sing-along choruses – scrappy, immediate, and alive with the thrill of hearing Edkins let melody rush to the front. It wasn’t a rough draft for Hoopla so much as the project’s first burst of freedom: A fuzzed-up, home-recorded reminder that his rock instincts could still hit hard while grinning ear to ear.
The studio leap from Weird Nightmare to Hoopla is immediate and audible. Co-produced by Edkins and Spoon’s Jim Eno at Seth Manchester’s Machines With Magnets, Hoopla stretches Weird Nightmare’s blown-out power-pop into brighter, more detailed shapes: Piano, bells, and castanets flicker around the guitars; Loel Campbell’s drums and Roddy Kuester’s bass keep the songs taut and immediate; the whole thing crackles like a tape you don’t want to eject. Edkins’ record-store education – indie rock, hardcore, ’60s psychedelia, DIY ’90s weirdos, melody addicts who refuse the rulebook – comes through not as reference-spotting, but as momentum. He knows the history, then blasts past it.
Edkins’ optimism lends Weird Nightmare its irresistible charge.
His work with METZ thrives on pressure, abrasion, and release; Weird Nightmare runs on melody first, letting fuzz and distortion sharpen the sweetness rather than crush it. The distinction matters because “Where I Belong” doesn’t sound like a side road so much as a necessary release valve: A songwriter chasing a different kind of voltage, one rooted in big chords, clean hooks, and the emotional directness of saying the hard thing without hiding behind noise.
“When writing METZ songs I was very interested in the push and pull of dissonance and tension,” Edkins explains. “It was a 3 headed monster approach to a power trio that set out to pulverize listeners. A joyous cacophony is how I always imagined it.”
“Weird Nightmare, the band name is misleading in many respects and is actually a Charles Mingus reference, is more lighthearted short/concise songs that have melody and harmony at front of mind,” he adds. “Very very different musical outlets for me. I think Weird Nightmare was and is reactionary, an about-face in many ways, after almost 20 years of METZ. It’s really exciting and rewarding to be doing something that feels drastically different and exactly right at the same time.”
That last line gives the whole project its pulse. Weird Nightmare isn’t Edkins abandoning intensity; it’s him rerouting it. The pressure is still there, the guitars still bite, and the volume still flares into the red, but Hoopla lets melody carry the weight. After years of glorious punishment, this is a different kind of release: Quicker, sweeter, sunnier, and no less serious about the charge a great guitar song can hold.
The record’s bright, hook-hungry joy comes alive in the song’s opening seconds. “Where I Belong” is all lift and forward motion, the kind of track that sounds built for car speakers, sidewalks, summer drives, and the small private drama of singing along before the sadness fully catches up. Its guitars radiate, its rhythm section kicks, and Edkins’ voice carries a rough-edged sweetness that makes the song glow without smoothing over the ache. The chorus is pure power-pop confession: “‘Cause I don’t know where I belong / I hide in the words of this song.” It’s catchy because the melody is undeniable; it hurts because the lyric is deadly serious. The song doesn’t romanticize touring, ambition, or escape. It names the split right down the middle.
“Well, that song is about when your passion forces you to be away from your loved ones for extended periods of time,” Edkins shares. “Being ‘absent’ from my family never gets easier and is still the part I find most difficult about being in this line of work. It also touches on that sense of doubt that I think we all share, ‘am I making the right choices with my life?’, ‘could my time be spent more wisely doing something?’”
“’Cause I don’t know where I belong
I hide in the words of this song
And I take and I take and then go
I wish I never knew what I know”
That line – “I wish I never knew what I know” – lands like the song’s hidden bruise. Knowledge has a cost here: Once you understand what the road takes, once you see the absence clearly, once you know the dream can be both gift and theft, innocence is gone. Still, “Where I Belong” refuses despair. Its brightness is not denial; it’s propulsion. The song keeps moving because the narrator keeps moving, caught between devotion and compulsion, home and work, love and calling. Edkins isn’t winking through the pain or dressing it up as rock-star mythology. He’s stating the problem plainly, and the plainness is what makes it hit.
“I think those lyrics are the complete opposite of nihilistic,” Edkins says. “If anything they are far too honest and sincere to be sung in a rock song. But that’s also why I like them. I’m being deadly serious, there is no wink and nod.”
The guitar solo rips the song open. Just before the final chorus, “Where I Belong” stops circling its own ache and lets the electricity speak: A roaring, ragged lead line tears through the brightness, pushing the whole track from peppy power-pop rush into full-bodied release. It doesn’t decorate the song; it detonates it. By the time the chorus comes back, Edkins’ doubt sounds louder, rawer, and more exposed, as if the guitar has dragged every buried nerve to the surface and left the melody glowing around the wound.
Sincerity is the song’s secret weapon. “Where I Belong” could have settled for charm – and it is charming, wildly so – but it chooses honesty over ease. It captures the contradiction of a life spent chasing sound: the joy of getting lost in music, the privilege of making it, the guilt of leaving, the doubt that waits in the quiet after the show. By the time Edkins repeats, “I shake and I shake to the bone / I wish I wish I knew the way home,” the song has become more than a peppy power-pop closer. It’s a confession in motion, a sunlit reckoning, and one of Hoopla’s most emotionally direct statements.
Heart of gold that can never decide
Feeling old when I see them walk by
(Them walk by)
Got no place I can claim as my own
(As my own)
Got no face I would call on the phone
‘Cause I don’t know where I belong
I hide in the words of this song
And I shake and I shake to the bone
I wish I wish I knew the way home
Across Hoopla, Edkins keeps sincerity wired to motion.
“Forever Elsewhere” drives forward with a determined charge, thrashing drums, and soaring, roaring guitars, but its lift carries a bruised kind of hope: Love as promise, patience, and endurance when everything feels broken. “Pay No Mind” throws a brash punk-rock elbow into the record’s middle, racing from the broke-night joke of “I can’t even pay attention” toward a chorus that insists “I’ll pay no mind, everything’s fine” even as everything is clearly not. It gives Hoopla another kind of motion: Denial with a grin, panic with its amp cranked. “Might See You There” pulls from another kind of longing, opening in a flash of screaming electricity before resolving into a bright, jangling power-pop rush full of suburban memory, old photographs, basement cover songs, and the ache of maybe coming home. Together, they make Hoopla feel like a record forever reaching backward and racing forward at the same time.
The album’s back half only deepens that spell. “Never in Style” hits with an instantly irresistible, inviting memory you can lose yourself in, Edkins singing the title phrase over a pounding drumbeat and glistening Beatles-y backing vocals that capture the dreamy, dramatic quality of this music. But the song never lets sweetness win outright: Heavy guitars and muscular drums keep dragging the glamour back into the garage, holding the whole thing in that perfect Weird Nightmare tension between shine and scuff. “Bright City Lights,” featuring Julianna Riolino, opens the door to the city after dark, its glowing pop rush chasing cheap drinks, fast-moving streets, and the moth-to-flame pull of a place that still knows how to seduce you.
Even the record’s gentler corners keep their voltage. “If You Should Turn Away,” one of Edkins’ own highlights, leans into ’60s classic-pop balladry without slipping outside Weird Nightmare’s warm, inviting world, complete with a melodic, reverb-laden guitar solo that lingers like a hand on the shoulder. The Oasis-like “Little Strange” brings the album’s playful wisdom into sharper focus, turning odd truths, old songs, and strange little facts into another bright burst of fuzzed-out release. The whole record hits hardest in that push and pull: Sweetness with weight, nostalgia with bite, and hooks that gleam without losing their raw rock charge – all pushed forward by the sheer fervor of Edkins’ songwriting.
Asked if there are songs he especially hopes people hear, Edkins gives the simplest possible answer: “I hope they put the entire album on and go for a walk outside.” It’s a perfect Weird Nightmare instruction. Hoopla is built for motion, for sunlight, for letting hooks shake loose whatever has been sitting too heavily in the body. Even at its most sentimental, the album wants to move.
For Edkins, music has always been the anchor.
“Making music is a blessing for me,” he says. “It’s the only thing I’ve found so far that I can do every day for endless hours and completely get lost. I hope it brings people some joy, where they can momentarily escape their day to day. That would be a win.”
“Where I Belong” earns that win. Bright, raw, charged, and open-hearted, it turns uncertainty into momentum and homesickness into melody, wrapping one of life’s hardest tradeoffs in guitars that sparkle, hooks that soar, and a chorus that refuses to let go. Weird Nightmare may be asking where home is, but on this song, Edkins sounds right where he needs to be: Inside the rush, inside the doubt, inside the words, shaking to the bone and singing his way toward the answer.
“‘Cause I don’t know where I belong
I hide in the words of this song
And I shake and I shake to the bone
I wish I wish I knew the way home”
Atwood Magazine recently caught up with Alex Edkins to step further into Hoopla’s bright, fuzzed-out world, the sunlit power-pop of Weird Nightmare after years inside METZ’s joyous cacophony, and the sincerity still buzzing beneath every hook.
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:: stream/purchase Hoopla here ::
:: connect with Weird Nightmare here ::
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Stream: ‘Hoopla’ – Weird Nightmare
A CONVERSATION WITH WEIRD NIGHTMARE
Atwood Magazine: Weird Nightmare, for those who are just discovering you today through this writeup, what do you want them to know about you and your music?
Weird Nightmare (Alex Edkins): I’m a songwriter/guitarist/producer that lives in Canada and has spent the last 20 years as 1/3 of the band METZ. I have also made music under several other monikers such as Noble Rot, Lids, and now Weird Nightmare. I write and record music for film and TV with my friend Graham Walsh from the band Holy F**k and I’m currently promoting my new Weird Nightmare album Hoopla that is available via Sub Pop Records and Dine Alone Records (Canada). I’m a Capricorn who enjoys basketball and tennis.
Who are some of your musical north stars these days, and what are you most excited about the music you're making today?
Weird Nightmare: I’m very inspired by Robyn Hitchcock’s music and his sustained high quality output over several decades. Martin Newell (Cleaners from Venus) is another musician who continues to create music on his own terms and has successfully lived outside the traditional music industry machine since the ‘60s. I like people who don’t play by the rules.
Alex, how do you separate Weird Nightmare from METZ in your own mind? Is there are super clear delineation between the two projects, and what songs go where, etc.?
Weird Nightmare: When writing METZ songs I was very interested in the push and pull of dissonance and tension. It was a three-headed monster approach to a power trio that set out to pulverize listeners. A joyous cacophony is how I always imagined it.
Weird Nightmare, the band name is misleading in many respects and is actually a Charles Mingus reference, is more lighthearted short/concise songs that have melody and harmony at front of mind. Very, very different musical outlets for me. I think Weird Nightmare was and is reactionary, an about-face in many ways, after almost 20 years of METZ. It’s really exciting and rewarding to be doing something that feels drastically different and exactly right at the same time.
Weird Nightmare's sophomore album was released three weeks ago! How do you feel Hoopla reintroduces you and captures your artistry, especially compared to 2022’s debut album?
Weird Nightmare: Hoopla is a bona fide studio album, whereas the first album was more of a document/home recording that captured the feeling of the pandemic. Completely different states of mind. Hoopla is quite sentimental lyrically, there is a lot of looking back at my younger years. I think I was feeling nostalgic but it’s also really optimistic which is new for me.
I’ve been excited by all of your singles, but I’ll admit that it was “Where I Belong” that finally forced me out of my inertia. What’s the story behind this song?
Weird Nightmare: Well, that song is about when your passion forces you to be away from your loved ones for extended periods of time. Being “absent” from my family never gets easier and is still the part I find most difficult about being in this line of work. It also touches on that sense of doubt that I think we all share, “am I making the right choices with my life?”, “could my time be spent more wisely doing something?”
“Why the hell am I still on the road? I’ve got a girl and a son back at home,” we hear you sing at the song’s start, all leading up to the all-too relatable chorus: “‘Cause I don’t know where I belong, I hide in the words of this song…” I guess, is the point that it’s all pointless, or to quote daft punk, is it that our work is never over? How do you approach this song – and its subject matter; is it all nihilistic and nothing matters, or are there never enough hours in the day? Can both be true?
Weird Nightmare: I think those lyrics are the complete opposite of nihilistic. If anything, they are far too honest and sincere to be sung in a rock song. But that’s also why I like them. I’m being deadly serious, there is no wink and nod.
I’ve also really loved tracks like “Forever Elsewhere” and “Might See You There” – seems like you had a lot to choose from when it came to picking the album’s singles! What ultimately inspired your choices, and how do you feel these tracks speak to the album overall?
Weird Nightmare: I like to ask the people I work with at Sub Pop Records and Dine Alone Records for advice when it comes to singles. I can never really see the forest from the trees when it comes to commercial viability. So I leave it to them.
Do you have any definitive favorites or personal highlights – songs, lyrics, guitar licks, random sounds – off this record?
Weird Nightmare: One of my favourites is “If You Should Turn Away” because it’s new territory for me. I think that is usually the case for songwriters, it’s most exciting when you go somewhere you haven’t been before.
Likewise, are there any songs you really hope people listen to or hear once the record releases in full this May?
Weird Nightmare: I hope they put the entire album on and go for a walk outside.
What do you hope listeners take away from Hoopla, and what have you taken away from creating this music and now putting it out?
Weird Nightmare: Making music is a blessing for me. It’s the only thing I’ve found so far that I can do every day for endless hours and completely get lost. I hope it brings people some joy, where they can momentarily escape their day to day. That would be a win.
In the spirit of paying it forward, who are you listening to these days that you would recommend to our readers?
Weird Nightmare: I’m really enjoying Golden Apples (we are playing NYC and Philly together this summer). Check them out and come to a show.
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:: stream/purchase Hoopla here ::
:: connect with Weird Nightmare here ::
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Stream: “Where I Belong” – Weird Nightmare
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© Colin Medley
© Colin Medley
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