My Wonderful Boyfriend have always sounded like a band held together by affection and bad decisions in roughly equal measure, and “Chip City” leans all the way into both. The Brooklyn trio’s new single for New West Records — their first since signing to the label, with a debut LP due next year — is a scraggly, creaky jam rooted in early Modest Mouse, all off-kilter guitars and a rhythm section that lurches like it’s trying to remember where it parked.

Frontman P.J. McCormick describes it as “a love song from a guy who is a little drunker than he thinks he is,” and that might be the most honest single-sentence pitch of the year. The vocal has that exact quality — earnest, slightly slurred around the edges, completely sincere in a way that only works because the band never winks at it. Consequence picked it, Stereogum’s been championing this band since their best-new-bands list in 2024, and Paste flagged them as Best of What’s Next for good reason: there’s a real songwriting voice here, underneath the scuzz.

“Chip City” doesn’t try to be bigger than it is. It’s a bar-band love song with indie-rock brains, a jam that knows when to tighten up and when to let the guitars wander off. In a week crowded with debut albums and big statements, there’s something refreshing about a single this unpretentious — three people in a room, a good hook, and a frontman honest enough to admit he’s not quite as sober as the chorus thinks he is.

The New West signing feels like a reward for persistence as much as talent. Paste called them the best band in Brooklyn, flagged them as Best of What’s Next, and put one of their songs on a year-end list in 2025 — all for a band with a famously faint digital footprint and a sound stitched together from Pavement, Built to Spill, Modest Mouse and Deerhunter reference points. Chip City doesn’t try to tidy any of that up. It lets the guitars do the talking, lets McCormick’s rasp carry the melody, and trusts that a good hook played with conviction beats a polished one every time. With a debut LP due next year and a Treefort Fest booking already in place, this single feels less like a one-off and more like a starting gun.

Rating: 4.5/5

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