Sonically and emotionally charged, The Beaches’ ‘Blame My Ex’ is a bold, brazen, and breathtaking album spanning our lowest lows and our highest highs. Out of inner reckoning and reeling, tension and turmoil, the Canadian rock band create a soaring, cinematic world in which empowerment and liberation reign supreme.
Stream: “Blame Brett” – The Beaches
‘Blame My Ex’ is a breakup record… We speak about grief, loneliness, anxiety, redemption, and finding yourself again after enduring a world of pain.
The Beaches waste no time getting into it on their sophomore album.
“Done being the sad girl – I’m done dating rockstars,” lead vocalist and bassist Jordan Miller sings hot on the mic, her voice a lightning rod of feverish emotion as guitars swell and drums churn all around her. “I’ll become an asshole disguised as a bad girl, in my button-up shirt, a natural disaster.” The heartache is fresh, but the fire inside is stronger – and from the moment Blame My Ex begins, The Beaches make it known that their breakup record isn’t going to wallow in self-pity – and indeed, you won’t find any cries for help or woe is me’s across these ten songs.
Out of inner reckoning and reeling, tension and turmoil, the Canadian rock band create a soaring, cinematic world in which empowerment and liberation reign supreme. They lean into life’s rawest emotions, channeling turbulence into catharsis with unfiltered energy, stunning passion, and unapologetic alt-rock grace. The result is a deeply human collection of songs that ache, energize, uplift, and inspire: Sonically and emotionally charged, Blame My Ex is a bold, brazen, and breathtaking album spanning our lowest lows and our highest highs.
Simply put, it’s The Beaches at their best.
That’s why I won’t get vulnerable
Don’t you dare get comfortable
Heartbreak is impossible
Feelings doing somersaults
I’m not ready for therapy
To take accountability
Right now it’s about me
Me and only ‘bout me
– “Blame Brett,” The Beaches
Released September 15, 2023 via AWAL, Blame My Ex is a spellbinding return from one of Toronto’s premier indie/alt-rock bands. Named after the neighborhood three out of their four members up in, The Beaches introduced themselves ten years ago as a band dedicated to high-octane performances, where spirited vocals and sizzling guitars roar in tandem.
The past decade has seen the four-piece of lead vocalist/bassist Jordan Miller, guitarist Kylie Miller, keyboardist/guitarist Leandra Earl, and drummer Eliza Enman-McDaniel hone their craft and their image, sign with, release music on, and leave a major label, and tour extensively throughout North America.
It feels like everything’s been leading up to this point, where the band of longtime best friends independently released their most confident, composed, and self-assured record to date – one that sees them openly and willfully spilling their guts while riding a roller-coaster of sonic wonders and intimate feelings. As vulnerable as it is vivid, Blame My Ex holds nothing back as The Beaches plunder their hearts, expose their scars, and tend to emotional wounds that are still bleeding – and it’s that real-time intensity that makes these songs hit as hard as they do.
“Blame My Ex is a breakup record about the experiences I had after my relationship ended,” The Beaches’ keyboardist and guitarist Leandra Earl tells Atwood Magazine. “We speak about grief, loneliness, anxiety, redemption, and finding yourself again after enduring a world of pain.”
Arriving six years after their debut LP Late Show – written and recorded when the band were all in their late teens and early twenties – Blame My Ex marks a striking evolution for The Beaches, who last released the EP Future Lovers in 2021.
“We started writing [this] record about a year and a half ago, and all we knew we wanted to do was to make something that felt different from our previous albums,” Earl explains. “About five months into writing our record my relationship ended, and that kind of shifted the trajectory of the songs we were writing.”
“We’ve gone through some significant changes since our last release,” she adds. “COVID, a change in management, and we’ve also become independent. I think many of these factors, as well as us just growing up a bit, play a part in why I feel we’ve matured as musicians. I think that’s the real difference from then to now. This record, while still sounding fun and Beaches, is a lot more earnest and grounded than anything we’ve previously released.”
Earl smiles as she describes Blame My Ex as a “sad girly triumph.”
Many of these songs came from a place of pain and hardship, but by embracing and not rejecting those feelings, she and her bandmates have essentially turned them on their heads.
She laughs in explaining that the album is titled Blame My Ex because “I didn’t want to call the whole album Blame Brett.”
Since its release in May of this year, the title track has exploded in popularity online, garnering nearly 15 millions streams on Spotify alone. “We are so humbled by the success that “Blame Brett” has had online,” Earl says. “We really tried to put our best foot forward when writing these new songs. And we feel that this record will really introduce us to a new set of fans, and that there’s something for everyone on the album.”
“Blame Brett” proves a powerful and instantly memorable opener for an album full of irresistible anthems and spellbinding pop- and punk-fused power-ballads.
From the rousing, raw singalong “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Paranoid” and the rip-roaring, beachy “Me & Me” – a truly breathtaking song in all the best ways – to the visceral upheaval “Everything Is Boring,” the intimate, introspective, and exposed “Shower Beer,” and more, Blame My Ex is as unrelentingly fun as it is full of feeling.
“Shower Beer,” written pre-breakup, has some of Earl’s personal favorite lyrics: “Alphabet Soup spelt you’re a fool but I still ate it all the same.”
Meanwhile, she says her two favorite songs are the ones that end the record – the deeply vulnerable, heart-on-sleeve “If A Tree Falls” and the supercharged “Cigarette.”
“‘If A Tree Falls’ is, in my opinion, the heart of the record, and is about the devastation I felt after my relationship came to an end,” Earl explains. “‘Cigarette’ is a song about a really cool skateboarding chick I met, who was my first crush after my relationship ended. It’s a euphoric moment for me to get to in an album where I kind of discuss so many sad experiences.”
Hiding in your hoodie, pulling on its strings
Haven’t took it off since you told me everything
God I wish that you didn’t
Had to take a knife and open up the cut
Silver in the light, watch it tear me up
I’ll bleed out any minute
I could look the other way again
Cause I learned from the best how to play pretend
If a tree falls, I don’t want to hear it
‘Cause if I don’t know
I don’t have to feel it
If I don’t see it going down
Then why can’t I just block it out
Watching you fall and I was nowhere near it
But I heard it and I hate it
From painful reckonings to radiant redemptions, Blame My Ex is a breakup album unlike any breakup album you’ve heard before.
“I hope it helps anyone who is experiencing heartbreak know that they are not alone, and that after they trek through the pain and the heartbreak there is a light at the end of the tunnel,” Earl shares. “That’s what writing this record and sharing it with people has helped me to discover.”
Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside The Beaches’ Blame My Ex with Atwood Magazine as Jordan Miller, Kylie Miller, Leandra Earl, and Eliza Enman-McDaniel take us track-by-track through the music and lyrics of their sophomore studio album!
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:: stream/purchase Blame My Ex here ::
:: connect with The Beaches here ::
Stream: ‘Blame My Ex’ – The Beaches
:: Inside Blame My Ex ::
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Blame Brett
“Blame Brett” is a song with a little bit of a misleading title. It’s not really about my relationship. It’s about feeling vulnerable and afraid to open your heart to someone new. I’m basically talking to my future partners explaining that I can only offer something casual while my heart heals. A song for all the hot messes out there.
What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Paranoid
“What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Paranoid” is a song about feeling intense anxiety after a breakup. This had been my experience when my relationship had just ended. I wasn’t used to being on my own, so I found myself feeling really insecure in social situations – which was really surreal because I’m usually very confident and self assured. The more people I’ve shown this song to however, the more I’ve come to understand this is really how most people feel after a breakup.
Me & Me
“Me and Me” explores falling back in love with yourself after a breakup. It’s about being able to take a step back, getting to know yourself and embracing being a single girl. It’s inspired by an episode of Sex and the City, which really helped Jordan through her breakup.
Everything is Boring
“Everything Is Boring” is a song about feeling over the mundanity of regular life, and just seeking out distraction and thrills. Especially for a touring musician, I think we go through those periods pretty frequently.
My Body ft. Your Lips (with Beach Weather)
This song is pure unadulterated sex. After a relationship ends, sometimes you don’t want to be in love with someone again for a while, sometimes you just want to be under someone for a while. We were so pleased to get our boys Beach Weather on this one. They totally nailed the vibe with their verse.
Kismet
“Kismet” has always been one of my favourite words, and I’ve always wanted to write a song about it. It’s a synonym for destiny or fate. This one is about running into a person who you have a crush on over and over again. I think it’s the most fun song on our record.
Shower Beer
“Shower Beer” was the first song that we wrote for this record, and it was written pre-breakup. In fact, we changed the lyrics in the bridge post breakup from “Brett can you wash my hair” to “Babe can you wash my hair.” It’s a song about feeling lost and partying too much. I still wonder if I was trying to tell myself something with this one…
Edge of the Earth
As a band we felt that it was really important that we finally wrote a song about a queer relationship. Two of us are queer and we hadn’t written about the subject on any of our other records. “Edge of the Earth” is a beautiful song about Leandra’s relationship with her girlfriend. It’s a song about a messy and fiery and intense love. This is one of the songs that we wrote with Karah James from Valley, and you can tell because it is SO catchy.
If A Tree Falls
“If A Tree Falls” was the first song I wrote about my breakup. I was honestly so devastated at the time, and writing this song helped me unpack my sadness. It’s a song about being let down by someone you love, and desperately trying to look the other way. I don’t think there would be a “Blame My Ex” without this song; for me, it’s the heart of the album.
Cigarette
I wrote this song about a gorgeous female skateboarder who I met at a party. She came up to me and asked if I liked the film “CARS” and I was honestly just very stoked on her.
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:: stream/purchase Blame My Ex here ::
:: connect with The Beaches here ::
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© Becca Hamel
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