If you’ve been to many shows in the Bay over the past few years, there’s a good chance you’ve seen Joel Cusumano perform. He’s been a member of Cocktails, Talkies, Stalls, and fronted the oddball industrial grunge-gaze DSTVV. Today we’re stoked to give you a taste of his newest project, Sob Stories. Sob Stories’ debut six-song 12″ EP is out later this month via Emotional Response, and our first peek into the album is their video for “I Don’t Know About Love.”

On “I Don’t Know,” Cusumano has created two minutes of power pop perfection, with a hook I haven’t gotten out of my head since Joel sent it our way and a ripper of a solo. Adam Widener (also of Circuits) has provided a professionally designed yet choppy and weird visual backdrop, providing an appropriately awkward setting for our song’s hero to do his thing. Check it all out below.

Sob Stories has a pair of release shows planned this month, first this week in Oakland with Circuits and Portland’s Bread & Butter, followed by a show two weeks later at the Hemlock with sea blite and the Saucy Jacks. If you can’t pick up a copy at one of the shows, you can preorder right here.

Circuits, Bread & Butter, Sob Stories
Octopus Literary Salon
September 13, 2017
9pm, $7

The Saucy Jacks, sea blite, Sob Stories
Hemlock Tavern
September 29, 2017
8:30pm, $8