What is summer for if not for fun? The sun is shining bright, the beaches are all open and ready for guests, and it’s easy to forget all your worries and enjoy yourself. Everything seems a little brighter in the summer. Friendships grow closer, work gets a little easier, and relationships bloom. Wolf Bradley and Andrew Macatrao agree, and are crafting music to capture that mood as southern California duo The Habits. They’re bringing all the summer fun you can possibly handle on their debut self-titled EP, The Habits. We love fun at Substream, so we’re premiering the EP right here.
There’s one major thing the four songs on The Habits all have in common: they’re a blast to listen to. Vocalist and guitarist Bradley immediately makes his presence known with a driving riff and rock-like chanting to start EP opener “Casual,” with Macatrao providing the heart of the song with his work on the drums. “Casual” races along at a dizzying pace, capturing the starstruck feeling you get when you first fall in love or find the perfect summer thrill. The Habits display a mastery of many sounds on the EP, as “Casual” gives way to “One Night,” a glitzy love song that celebrates a new connection and pairs a bevy of synths with the duo’s live instruments. “Thirsty” showcases the pair’s songwriting, as they get cheeky about the different meanings of the word “thirsty” and introduce a pulsing bass line that wouldn’t be out of place at any nightclub. The EP ends quite earnestly with “love you,” a powerful pop ballad that contains aspects of all the previous songs, from great guitar playing to extravagant production. The lyrics are a plain, bold declaration of love, and you can tell they mean every single word.
Having a good time was one of the main goals for The Habits. They told Substream:
“This EP is a celebration of love, emotion, and entertainment. We set out to make a small body of work that was fun, catchy, sonically explorative, and completely heartfelt and we believe we accomplished it. The general concept is the beginning of a relationship. It starts off with the insecurity of not knowing where you and a lover stand, moves into the “aha” moment of realizing you’re in love, and then comes the fun of a new relationship. It’s a high intensity ride that was made to played loud all summer. We wrote these songs to be sung at the top of your lungs and we can’t explain how excited we are for the world to hear it.”
If you’re ready to have a good time, you can listen to The Habits’s self-titled debut EP below.