Friendship rarely ends in a clean break; more often, it splinters in real time –

– through strained conversations, swallowed panic, half-said apologies, and the awful recognition that love can survive long after trust has changed shape. Ok Goodnight’s latest single “22” lives inside that rupture, transforming betrayal, forgiveness, loneliness, and grief into a feverish hard rock eruption that hits with the force of an emotional reckoning. “Been thinking about how my words all come out, I’m in trouble – where’s the panic button?” Casey Lee Williams sings at the top, her voice already bracing for impact – raw, radiant, and trembling with the weight of everything left unresolved.

The Boston art rock band’s first release in three years, “22” marks a roaring return and a thrilling new beginning: The lead single off their forthcoming third album stop/go, out June 12, 2026, finds Ok Goodnight – Casey Lee Williams (vocals), Martín de Lima (piano/guitar), Augusto Bussio (drums/guitar), and Peter de Reyna (bass) – pushing their sound into darker, heavier, more cinematic terrain. Following 2023’s prog-rock/metal opus The Fox and the Bird, “22” signals a bold and intentional creative expansion. Heavy drums pound like a racing heart; searing guitars cut through the haze; nostalgic synths flicker and swell around Williams’ breathtaking vocal performance, which burns with anguish, compassion, and unfiltered intensity. It’s a whole world unto itself – explosive and theatrical, intimate and immense – channeling the widescreen grandeur of Muse, the cathartic fire of Paramore, and the band’s own progressive, art-rock restlessness into a song that feels both deeply personal and utterly consuming.

“Saying this song was a step in a new direction for us would be an understatement,” Williams tells Atwood Magazine. “Creating this song, which was the first demo we began writing after the release of The Fox and the Bird, gave us hope and got us excited about writing new music with the band at a time of uncertainty and change. This song explores the complex themes of betrayal, forgiveness, loneliness, and the bittersweet nature of endings.” That bittersweetness sits at the center of “22,” where catharsis arrives not as closure, but as a flood: “It’s all water under the bridge, I know that’s what you wanted to hear / It’s gone forever, never-ending, whatever way you go, you’ll always matter to me.” The line lands like a wound and a blessing all at once – a final flare of love for a bond that can’t return to what it was, but refuses to disappear.

The title itself became a kind of timestamp – not just a number, but a marker of the moment Ok Goodnight began again. Williams started the first demo that would become “22” toward the end of 2022, a pivotal year for the band as they questioned whether Ok Goodnight would continue as a committed creative project at all. “We’d need to see where the direction of the music could go, and where we wanted it to go,” she says. “It was scary, but at the same time very exciting and inspiring getting to start fresh on a blank canvas.” That uncertainty pulses through the song’s bloodstream: The panic button, the shrinking-up mid-conversation, the rooms too empty to bear. “22” isn’t just about the end of a friendship – it’s about standing in the wreckage of change and realizing the only way out is through.

That emotional passage is built into the song’s architecture, which moves like a body under pressure – tense, volatile, and constantly changing shape. Williams brought in the first spark – what Augusto Bussio describes as “a short demo of what would become the intro and verses for the song which had a very New Wave feel to it” – before the band gathered around it and pulled out its harder edges. “We started workshopping the song all together at [my] place, and that’s where the more rocky elements came in as we developed the chorus which felt like it was pulled out of a Foo Fighters tune, so we tried to match that energy with the guitars and drums,” he says.

That collision of instincts is what gives “22” its breathless force: The verses flicker with dark, nostalgic synths and spiraling tension; the chorus detonates with arena-sized urgency; the post-chorus breakdown and solo section twist into jagged, math-rock contortions before the band finally lets the bottom drop out. “To put a bow on it, we felt the song was asking for a heavy breakdown after the last chorus so we dipped into our more metal side and brought out the weight,” Bussio adds. “In the end, we ended up with a pretty heavy sounding, new wave inspired rock tune which introduces some of our newer inspirations whilst keeping some of the classic Ok Goodnight feel that people know us for.”

This weight carries into the song’s music video, a surreal and stunning visual extension of “22” that turns emotional upheaval into motion, color, and disassembly. Directed and edited by Margot Budzyna, produced by Budzyna and Christian Tasiopoulos, and filmed at Moonlight Studios in Los Angeles, the video places Ok Goodnight inside a dreamlike world where memory, performance, and change blur into one another.

“The music video is styled in a unique, atemporal fashion, lives in a plethora of surreal, dreamlike settings, and artfully represents every element of the song through its stunning cinematography,” Williams says. “The video depicts the often disconcerting idea of change by showcasing movers disassembling a room. We also see a projector displaying short videos of the band members onto a wall, as if they are memories playing over and over again.” It’s a striking image for a song about endings that refuse to stay still: A room taken apart piece by piece, the past replaying on the wall, bodies moving through grief as if trying to shake loose from it.

**As the lead single off stop/go, “22” also opens the door to a record shaped by flux – emotional, relational, creative, and existential.**

Martín de Lima describes the album as having been written “in a time of many changes and transitions,” touching on “passions that evolved over time, the anxieties of being a young adult trying to make a living in a post-covid world, and the never ending evolution of relationships.” Within that larger frame, “22” focuses on “the evolution of a friendship that is forever changed, but will always be remembered with the sweetness and love that was present.” That sweetness matters. For all its thunder and fracture, the song never curdles into bitterness; even at its most furious, it keeps returning to devotion. “Whatever way you go, you’ll always matter to me” isn’t a surrender so much as a release – a way of honoring the love that remains without pretending the hurt didn’t happen.

That balance of intensity and tenderness is Ok Goodnight’s gift. They can be crushingly heavy and achingly melodic, intricate and immediate, unrestrained and deeply intentional – a band that builds entire worlds inside a single song and still leaves room for a human heart to beat at the center. “22” is a gripping reintroduction because it captures a group willing to evolve without abandoning the emotional force that made their music resonate in the first place. It roars, aches, spirals, and soars; it takes the wreckage of a relationship and turns it into a cinematic act of release.

For listeners standing at their own thresholds – between past and future, anger and forgiveness, holding on and letting go – “22” doesn’t offer easy closure. It offers movement. It offers impact. It offers proof that even after an ending, love can still echo with purpose – that a fractured friendship can leave behind not only grief, but gratitude; not only panic, but release; not only the ache of what changed, but the enduring truth that some people matter even after they’re gone.

Below, Ok Goodnight dive deeper into the making of “22,” the restless, shape-shifting world of stop/go, their fearless, ever-expanding art rock vision, and the raw collaborative spark behind this thrilling new chapter.

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:: stream/purchase 22 here ::

:: connect with Ok Goodnight here ::

:: pre-save stop/go here ::

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Stream: “22” – Ok Goodnight

A CONVERSATION WITH OK GOODNIGHT

Augusto Bussio: First of all we’d like to welcome you to the Ok Goodnight world, we are so happy you are here! We are a young art rock band formed in Boston that is fearless in its creativity and that does not conform to one particular sound. Although our music is very much influenced by rock and metal we love to experiment by bringing in sounds and textures from genres which you might not expect. We can get extremely heavy and intense when needed but don’t shy away from beautiful melodies and soft acoustic elements, making our listeners go through a wide array of emotions, sometimes in the same song. We are about to release our third studio album called stop/go which has some of the most exciting and experimental music we have written to date. Each song brings out a different flavor of the Ok Goodnight sound palette making this album an engaging and eclectic mix which showcases the band’s talent and creativity like never before. We are very excited for this new release as we feel like this album marks a leveling up in our artistic pursuits as a band. We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed creating it!

Augusto Bussio: We all have different musical backgrounds and thus our idols and inspirations are very varied, but we all are very much rooted in rock music. Some of the big names that have inspired our work are Paramore, The Mars Volta, Porcupine Tree and Black Midi. With this new release we dug deeper into our experimental and artistic side, playing with newer modern sounds and production techniques and having a lot of fun with it. The Fox and the Bird was such a structured project that involved a lot of planning and story telling, so we wanted to contrast that by making an album that is more distended and that can surprise you with each song. I think in this album we push and extend the limits of what Ok Goodnight sounds like, with each song immersing the listener into a new and different universe while still keeping the elements that make our sound ours.

Casey: This song explores the complex themes of betrayal, forgiveness, loneliness, and the bittersweet endings of friendship. Through combining heavy guitar riffs with dark, nostalgic synths and carefully integrated samples, “22” showcases a sonic landscape inspired by new wave rock. This is also the first tune we wrote for this coming album and the first that we wrote as a group after the departure of our guitarist, Martin Gonzalez, in 2023. We were in the midst of a lot of confusing, uncomfortable transitions, and we all shared muddled feelings about what the future would bring.This song gave us hope and got us excited about writing new music at a time of uncertainty and change. It consolidated our new formation and opened the doors for what would become our new record’s sound, so it felt natural for us to make this the first single.

Casey: “22” became the name of the song because the very first demo that would begin this new record-writing process was started by me towards the end of the year 2022. This was a very important year for us for a lot of reasons, but chiefly, because we would be attempting to figure out whether or not “Ok Goodnight” was going to continue as a committed music project after we concluded the recording of The Fox and the Bird. We’d need to see where the direction of the music could go, and where we wanted it to go. It was scary, but at the same time very exciting and inspiring getting to start fresh on a blank canvas. After writing the song in its entirety, I felt that the lyrics, especially of the chorus, had a very “stream-of-consciousness” nature to them, and none of the words or phrases felt like the right title. “22” had a simple, compelling, and sort of hypnotical feeling to it that just felt right.

Casey: Catharsis is definitely a great and deeply felt word in relation to this song and its writing process. I really wanted to highlight the coexistence (and often combative nature) of feelings like sorrow and compassion, and how changes, or even endings in relationships can be difficult to accept and ultimately grieve. There is a certain raw anger that’s expressed in the climax of the song, repeating the lines “whatever way you go, you’ll always matter to me.” It’s a statement coated and overflowing with love, heartache, admiration, and warm reflection all at once. Sometimes people hurt each other, sometimes we say or do regrettable things, and sometimes it results in change, or it was brought on by change. Regardless, love and adoration always persist. I believe we always see the best in one another, but writing songs about it can definitely help in the healing process.

Augusto Bussio: Working on “22” was a lot of fun and a very exciting song for us to work on as it was the first demo we started working on after finishing The Fox and the Bird. Casey brought in a short demo of what would become the intro and verses for the song which had a very New Wave feel to it. We started workshopping the song all together at Augusto’s place and that’s where the more rocky elements came in as we developed the chorus which felt like it was pulled out of a Foo Fighters tune, so we tried to match that energy with the guitars and drums. We were also starting to think about new influences to bring to our sound and were listening to a lot of math rock at the time which inspired the pre-chorus guitar and the solo section’s crazy hits. To put a bow on it, we felt the song was asking for a heavy breakdown after the last chorus, so we dipped into our more metal side and brought out the weight. In the end we ended up with a pretty heavy sounding new wave inspired rock tune, which introduces some of our newer inspirations whilst keeping some of the classic Ok Goodnight feel that people know us for.

Casey: The music video is styled in a unique, atemporal fashion, lives in a plethora of surreal, dreamlike settings, and artfully represents every element of the song through its stunning cinematography. The video depicts the often disconcerting idea of change by showcasing movers disassembling a room. We also see a projector displaying short videos of the band members onto a wall, as if they are memories playing over and over again. It was created by filmmakers Margot Budzyna and Christian Tasiopoulos, two very close friends of the band, and was made possible by an even larger crew of friends and family, which made it all the more special. We couldn’t be happier that this will serve as the first sonic and visual debut for the new album.

Martín: We started writing this album in a time of many changes and transitions. Passions that evolved over time, the anxieties of being a young adult trying to make a living in a post-covid world, and the never ending evolution of relationships all are themes that we touch on with this album. This one song specifically focuses on the evolution of a friendship that is forever changed, but will always be remembered with the sweetness and love that was present. We also wanted to expand our sound and explore with sampling and more synth pop and math rock elements, so I think it is a great way to introduce listeners into the sonic identity of this new release.

Martín: The Fox and The Bird was definitely super prog-rock/metal focused, which we absolutely love. However, we wanted to take the approach of writing riffs and catchy melodies and mix that with janky guitar tones, sampling, and a more art rock inspired sound. We even dove a little into the world of noise rock as well, even if it’s subtle throughout. We also started writing with Peter (our bass player) who joined the band right after The Fox and The Bird, so he’s brought some of his own influences into the mix as well. I feel it captures that desire to keep evolving and absorbing the music that is out there, which is the essence of what we’ve been doing for the past 7 years, while hopefully sounding more mature and developed than we did when we started.

Martín: Honestly I hope that people dig it! That’s pretty much it. If they find they connect with it on a deeper level that’s cool too. Hopefully it resonates with people that like many kinds of music, since we tend to jump genres in songs quite a bit.

As far as what I have taken away from finishing it and putting it out there it’s hard to say one single thing – but if I had to choose it’s probably that my band mates surprise me all the time. They are some of the most creatively intense people and I love it.

Augusto: I’ve been listening to a lot of reggae and 70’s prog lately. One reggae album I’ve been listening to on repeat has been Israel Vibration’s “Stamina” which is great to listen to in the morning as it gives me the energy to start the day. For 70’s prog I’ve been on an Emerson, Lake and Palmer vibe lately, especially their album “Trilogy” which I deeply love. It has such a variety of songs and sounds and their playing is phenomenal throughout. I’ve also been listening to Steven Wilson’s mix of Gentle Giant’s “Octopus” a lot which is amazing. Two tracks to highlight are the beautiful “Think of Me with Kindness” and the powerful “The Advent of Panurge”.

Casey: Some of the artists that have been in my rotation lately have been The Books, Daniela Andrade, Puma Blue, April + Vista, Juana Aguirre, Radiohead (everpresent), Weval, Grouper, Ulrika Spacek, Zammuto, Oklou,Hiatus Kaiyote, Genesis Owusu, and Epilogio. I tend to violently oscillate between listening to entire albums or just shuffling all of the songs in my library at once. A bit crazy, I know, but I also have some playlists I’ve built to try and create some intention and smoothness in those overwise startling transitions.

Martín: One of the albums that accompanied me throughout the whole writing of this album is Mutemath, by Mutemath. Unbelievable. I’ve also been blasting GUSTO by Boko Yout, NUEVA SANGRE by Militantes del Climax, Imaginal Disk by Magdalena Bay, and on a more gentle note, songs by Adrianne Lenker.

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