Harmony Woods Is Confident About Her Own Self-Destruction on “Best Laid Plans”

Philly-based artist Harmony Woods has proved with “Best Laid Plans” that she is ready to enter the indie rock limelight.

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Listen: “Best Laid Plans” – Harmony Woods

Why do we return to those that hurt us? Sofia Verbilla of Harmony Woods might not be able to answer that question entirely, but her music, dense with potent lyricism and willowy production, captures that frustration with a great, exciting style that goes far beyond boilerplate “emo indie-rock.”

Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Best Laid Plans,” Harmony Wood’s second single off her forthcoming debut album Make Yourself at Home, out October 4th, 2019 on Skeletal Lightning. Produced by Chris Teti of TWIABP and mastered by Ryan Schwabe (Hop Along, Cayetana, Modern Baseball), “Best Laid Plans” is a song whose thematic kernels explode into the rest of the album.

“This song, and many of the songs from the first side of the record, have to do with throwing intuition aside and giving into infatuation,” Sofia Verbilla tells Atwood Magazine. “It can be easy to keep going back to pursuing a person who you know deep down isn’t good for you, but somehow causes you to have these intense, euphoric rushes. As we all have done at some point, the narrator makes an unhealthy choice in giving into this person’s hold on them.”

Fancy seeing you here
all by yourself
sitting in the lowlight,

the fractals in your eyes dancing around

Say, are you lonely?
You look like you could use some company
but I’m not the one to make the first move

Then again, neither are you

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“Best Laid Plans” achieves an affecting result becauses its romantic excesses are counterpointed with sharp observations and gorgeous imagery. As the song builds to its emotional catharsis at the chorus, a heavy bass line and delicate acoustic-guitar riffs play against each other like doomed lovers, much like the characters in “Best Laid Plans.” “Say, are you lonely? / You look like you could use some company,” Verbilla softly beckons. “But I’m not one to make the first move. Then again, neither are you.” Those of us who hunger for love share a solidarity in our desire for “true” connection — and also the brutal awkwardness of it all.

Stream “Best Laid Plans” exclusively on Atwood Magazine!