Saint Friday, Philadelphia’s newest gift to the noise, has just unleashed their debut single “REASON,” a three-minute-and-change tour through the beautiful, broken heart of a toxic relationship, and it’s so addictive you’ll want to hurt yourself listening to it on repeat.
Let’s get the pedigree straight. Saint Friday is a sibling duo, the Fordyces—Helen and Johnny. Formed just this year, they’ve crash-landed with a sound they call “bubble grunge,” and holy hell, does that name fit. It’s the sweet sting of pop melody wrapped in a blanket of fuzzed-out, distorted guitars. It’s the sound of vulnerability putting on a leather jacket and kicking your door in.
Johnny Fordyce is the architect of the riff, the man behind the instrumental storm. The whole track started with his instrumental ideas, and you can feel it. The song doesn’t build—it lurches, it swells, it “rises and falls abruptly,” pulling you through the emotional wringer without a safety harness. It’s this turbulent, gut-churning foundation that gives the track its unstable energy.
Then there’s Helen Fordyce. Frontwoman. Voice of the angelic and the agonized. Her vocals are the centrepiece, hovering perfectly “between comfort and pain.” She sings about the turmoil of a toxic dynamic, and she sonically bleeds it. The lyrics, made to match the instrumentals’ jagged peaks and valleys, dive into that cognitive dissonance of knowing something is destroying you while desperately clinging to the exhilaration that makes you feel alive. This is the sound of addiction, the soundtrack to a love that breaks you because it’s the only thing that makes you feel whole.
They brought this to life at Little Brother Audio with producer Tyler Ripley and drummer Gabe Sagherian. Shout out to the team—Johnny says they “knocked it out of the park,” and that’s an understatement. The track has the energy of a band capturing lightning in a bottle, the first salvo in a four-song project they started this summer.
Saint Friday is carving a fresh wound for today. They’re hitting the stage in West Chester and Philly soon. Get on board now. “REASON” is a necessity for anyone who likes their rock with heart, guts, and a glorious amount of noise.