Bondo’s Hypnotic Yet Cathartic Post-Hardcore Single “Running Back” Draws You In With Its Sonic Contrasts

Bondo, photo courtesy the artists

Bondo seems to sketch and stretch out musical ideas on “Running Back,” like its structure was arranged like stringing together journal entries. Connecting thoughts and feelings with a hypnotic and meditative bass line and drums. The vocals are nearly laconic and meditative but the guitar fractures that peace and feeds back slightly to give the song some evocative dissonance. The song’s mood is reminiscent of a more mellow Unwound or more discordant Versus song which is what makes it immediately relistenable. It is economical in its composition and hits the dramatic notes at the right times with a sense of emotional urgency. What isn’t as obvious initially is how it isn’t conventional in its structure. There is no intro or outro, just moments in time in the songwriting and the way it draws you into its dreamlike tone and thrilling moments of peak catharsis. Watch the video for “Running Back” on YouTube and follow Bondo at the links below. The band’s latest, self-titled, album releases July 24, 2026 on limited vinyl, digital download and streaming.

Bondo on Instagram

Bondo on Bandcamp

Bondo’s Slowcore Post-Rock Song “New Brain” is a Contemplative Exploration of a Yearning for a Psychological Reset

Bondo, photo courtesy the artists

Bondo’s contemplative yet uneasy “New Brain” brings us in with a lonely, spare, borderline atonal guitar line with drums like something born out a creative cauldron in which its players dropped Slint, Codeine, Unwound and Sonic Youth to produce a something melancholic and yearning. Toward the last fourth of the song the once tranquil musical elements come together in a clashing passage of heightened emotional intensity before easing back into impressionistic guitar work and rhythms. The minimal vocals are like neo-Beat poetry, the guitar progressions are like a call and response answer to self in an informal structure like a free jazz piece aiming to take on the quality of water with the tones resonating like droplets creating lingering waves creating interference patterns with one another that somehow resolve into evocative intersections. Its an apt dynamic for a song seemingly about wanting to have a new brain and reset one’s life, one’s habits and one’s possible future trajectory and having to come to terms with that not being a realistic outcome even if it would make everything easier. Listen to “New Brain” on Spotify and follow Bondo on Instagram.