The Singles Bar: Rows just want ‘Something More’
The indie-rock band chronicle the ravages of a breakup and what comes after.
Welcome to The Singles Bar, a review series focused on new single and song releases.
Love is always a gamble. Putting your heart on the line, you step out in the hopes of discovering The One. As much as you can anticipate the potentiality of a breakup, it’s nearly always crushing. You can’t stop it, and you let it happen, feeling every damning emotion, from anger to sorrow to self-loathing. You hope it’ll fade, and it eventually does ⎯⎯ but the only proper medication is time. Matt Couchois, frontman of indie-rock band Rows, had his heart ravaged beyond recognition, and while it did sting for a minute, he clawed his way out of rock bottom eventually. New single “Something More” (the titular cut from their debut EP) washes over you, spongy foam kissing your cheeks and lingering on the ear lobes.
It’s a soothing reflection, wading through the muck and mire of the pain to reemerge through freshly conjured waves. “It’s easy to wallow in self-pity after a break-up, but the hardest part is learning to accept what was wrong and find the strength to move forward,” Couchois explains of the song, possessing a thick, syrupy production while also feeling quite rejuvenating. “I wanted the production of this song to bring to life exactly how moving on feels. It’s like that first dive under a wave in the cold ocean. It’s painful for a second but you come out the other side feeling triumphant and wiped clean.”
His mind is miraculously wiped clean. The scars are still there, of course, but they don’t carry nearly the same burdensome weight. “Finally, friend, I still see the color of your eyes in my head / And I hoped you stay / I still feel the fire from your eyes when I’m awake,” he sighs into the orb-like mixture. “Smile beginnings feel the same as big ones do / And that’s the way that I feel when I look at you.”
As the EP’s theme song, there is a two-ton pressure to exemplify many of the project’s themes, hooking each one together and tying them together in a curled bow. “Something More” delivers in spades, opening the heart and mind to what’s next, post-breakup. “The EP as a whole is the sum of all the things I grappled with during a specific period of my life,” Couchois says. “I didn’t want to just throw a few songs up online and call it an EP. I wanted this body of work to feel like a full-length record that had an arc and a story.”
Listen below:
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