Premiere: Weakened Associates Share New Video for “Smoke and Mirrors”
New Album Feels Like Hell is Out October tenth by way of Don Giovanni
Oct 09, 2025
Pictures by Justin Labadie
Portland, Maine-based DIY indie punk outfit Weakened Associates have spent this 12 months steadily rolling out their new album, Feels Like Hell, their first report since their 2022 launch, Quitter. Early this 12 months, they shared their cowl of Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn,” adopted by “Robust Luck (Bleed Me Out),” “NPC (that includes Buckethead),” and “Nosebleed.” The entire singles hit on a hanging stability, providing roiling, anxious portraits of our trendy dystopian second alongside performances which can be catchy, honest, and viscerally cathartic.
The total album is out tomorrow, and at present they’re sharing one final single, “Smoke and Mirrors,” alongside an accompanying video, premiering with Underneath the Radar.
“Smoke and Mirrors” is well essentially the most explosive of the report’s singles, carried by jagged-edged riffs, tense verses, and a searing refrain. The band adopts the traditional ‘90s alt rock quiet-loud construction, with Sonia Sturino’s vocals swirling amidst the spacious and subdued instrumentation earlier than they erupt into a very propulsive hook. The observe exhibits a tougher edge to Weakened Associates, and it’s electrifying to see them let unfastened. In the meantime, the lyrics unpack emotions of getting used and manipulated by somebody you thought was a good friend, transmuting that bitterness into risky, throat-shredding screams. Sturino sings, “And now you’re left there on their own / You may’t admit that you just had been unsuitable / Nonetheless pointing fingers ‘trigger you by no means study / Watch it burn, watch it burn / Throw the match, watch it burn / Fade away / Hey, you’re the one in charge / Waste away / I can’t offer you magic anymore, gotta maintain it for myself.”
The band says of the observe, “‘Smoke and Mirrors’ is a music concerning the emotional whiplash of being near somebody who solely sees others as instruments for their very own ambition. It’s about reckoning with the form of narcissist who charms their approach into your belief, who makes you are feeling seen, wanted, and particular, till you notice you had been only a stepping stone on their approach up. It’s a music about manipulation disguised as friendship, about lastly seeing by the phantasm and deciding that you just’re executed getting used.”
Take a look at the music and video under. Feels Like Hell is out in all places tomorrow by way of Don Giovanni.
