Hey Violet’s first single since 2019, “Friends Like This” is an impassioned and feverish anthemic channeling familiar pandemic-induced frustrations of distance, disconnect, isolation, and loneliness.

for fans of MisterWives, Ariana Grande, Maroon 5

Stream: “Friends Like This” – Hey Violet

How am I supposed to have fun like this, at a party of one like this?

Hey Violet’s first single in nearly eighteen months’ time is an impassioned and feverish uproar of a somewhat familiar frustration: Isolation, distance, disconnect, and a general lack of intimacy. A soaring anthem full of vivid emotion, catchy lyrics, and tongue-in-cheek imagery, “Friends in Cheek” turns exasperation into a beautiful pop upheaval.

It’s the release we all need right now, a year into the COVID-19 pandemic.

Friends Like This - Hey Violet — Friends Like This – Hey Violet

Spending all day on my phone
Am I in prison, or am I just home?
Might bleach my hair, might shave it off
I might call my ex or even his mom
Drive to the beach, but stay in my car

Independently released March 12, 2021, “Friends Like This” marks a special new chapter for Hey Violet as they embark on an independent career. Currently the trio of sisters Rena and Nia Lovelis and Casey Moreta, Hey Violet have never shied away from new challenges – whether it was singing truth to power, diving into the depths of their emotions through song, or finding new ways of expressing something that’s been said a hundred times, and remains true.

Speaking to Atwood Magazine five unfathomably long years ago, Rena Lovelis expressed the band’s general desire of “[finding] different ways of saying stuff and different ways of playing things.” Hey Violet certainly accomplished that in “Friends Like This,” a song that doesn’t shy away from the anger and anguish we’ve all experienced to some degree throughout the past year. Rather than sugarcoat life or glaze over the situation, Hey Violet lean into those visceral feelings, using their music as an outlet to express, process, and unleash a bevy of pent-up energy. Better than keeping it all bottled up inside, right?

Rena Lovelis lets it all out in a powerful chorus – her evocative, strong voice laced around soulful melodies and pulsing grooves:

How am I supposed to make friends like this?
How am I supposed to make friends like this?
When we only connect like this
How am I supposed to make? How am I supposed to makе?
How am I supposed to have fun like this?
At a party of onе like this?
How am I supposed to make friends like this?
How am I supposed to make? How am I supposed to make?

”‘Friends Like This’ is obviously quarantine-inspired, but the song encapsulates more than just the requirement of self-isolation we’ve all had to endure,” Lovelis recently told HollywoodLife. “It’s been such a frustrating past year, so we took that feeling of anger and frustration and translated it into the lyrics of ‘Friends Like This.’ What we found most soothing is that, sonically, the sound and mood of the song doesn’t take on the same emotion that the lyrics do. “Friends Like This” is a really fun and bouncy pop song that acted as our relief from all of the pent-up loneliness and lack of human connection we’re all experiencing.”

Released March 29, the band’s dazzling “Friends Like This” music video brings us closer to Hey Violet than we’ve been in nearly two years’ time. Directed by Ariel Michelle, the immersive visual intensifies the song’s already dynamic emotional and lyrical content. “[It’s] essentially a hyperbolized version of what many of us have been doing and feeling during quarantine,” Rena Lovelis explains. “Glamorized moments of utter boredom (Rena changing the television multiple times but never finding anything good to watch), chaos & confusion (Nia baking bread and pulling it out of the oven only to add that loaf to a huge stack of already-made bread, capturing the stir-craziness we’re all are feeling) and even grappling with being completely out of touch with our loved ones and attempting to find others ways to connect (Casey in the backyard having a tea party with dolls and stuffed animals).”

A mixture of lighthearted and deeply serious sentiments blend together as Hey Violet convey the fluctuating emotions that have rippled – or rather, ricocheted – throughout us during this pandemic:

So boring, staring at these walls
It feels like my whole life, has been put on pause
Might start a cult, that could be sick
Is golf kinda cool, or did I lose my grip?
Might take a trip, but just to my fridge
Ugh

With only about 15% of the US population fully vaccinated against coronavirus (according to US News) at the time of this writing, it appears we will have to wait a little longer until we can all start making friends again. Thankfully, we now have an earworm anthem in “Friends Like This” to soundtrack our socially distanced, still-isolated lives.

“Friends Like This” is the lead single off Hey Violet’s forthcoming EP Problems – a four-track affair with what’s been described as “a decidedly edgier vibe” – out mid-May 2021. Until that time comes, we’ll be dwelling in the intoxicating grooves and relatable angst of “Friends Like This.”