A new era of Spyne! has begun. The Asbury Park-based three-piece released their newest single, “Sister Make You,” on September 25, marking their first release since their 2024 debut album, Out From Nowhere. Now, Spyne! is back with a self-produced track that stays true to the genre the band knows best while embracing a new recording environment that gives the song a sound of its own.
“There’s nothing really super flashy about it,” lead singer Kyle Moyer explained. “There’s nothing crazy going into it. To me, not to toot my own horn, it’s a really good song, and these guys did a phenomenal job on it.”
The song was born from a riff and a hint of jealousy. Inspired musically in part by Oasis’s “Cigarettes & Alcohol,” “Sister Make You” captures the frustration of watching others find success while feeling stuck in place.
“It’s kind of like a homage to me being like, ‘When is our turn?’” Moyer explained. “Kind of envious almost in a way, but it’s about a fake character who’s going through the motions of, ‘Well, what do I have to do to get to this point? Do I have to give up parts of myself to get there? Do I really have to give it all in and just get rid of my life to make this thing work?’”
The track also introduces a new element to Spyne!’s sound: spoken word, marking the first time the band has incorporated the style into one of its songs.
“Oftentimes, when you listen to music, what makes a song or something really stick out to you is not what the music is doing. It’s everything that’s happening around it,” lead guitarist Liam Muhler said. The song opens with snippets of various conversations, allowing listeners to feel as though they’re eavesdropping on the people around them.
“I really like the sort of eroding the barrier between hearing things and thinking that they’re just in your headphones and hearing things and thinking that they’re in the room that you’re in. I think that’s a really fun experience to have,” he added.
The track was also recorded in a rather unconventional studio: Moyer’s basement. With modern recording technology making home production more accessible, the band was able to experiment outside a traditional studio environment.
“You can do it all in your own house now, and it takes away from the studio feel, but it opens up a whole different door of creativity because you’re not on a time crunch and paying [crazy amounts of money],” Moyer said.
Muhler joked, “It’s Brookdale Community College for you.”
“This is the only song that wasn’t done in some sort of studio. We did it in the basement and the upstairs, and so that alone makes the sound different,” bassist Antoni Manousos said.
Moyer also detailed some of the equipment used during the recording process, including an X32 mixer for the drums and an interface paired with a Neve preamp. The DIY approach ultimately gave the track a distinct sonic identity, one that Muhler believes listeners can hear in the finished product.
“One thing you could definitely hear, and how it was recorded, is that when you listen to Out of Nowhere, recorded in a large studio space, it sounds like you’re in a bigger room. It’s a little bit more grand in that sort of sense,” Muhler explained. “But when you listen to this new one, and I think that it will also be an indicative trait of our later releases if they’re recorded in the same way, it sounds cozy, like it’s in a small space. It’s more intimate, and that, I think, is a really nice touch.”
With the track now released, Spyne! is looking forward to bringing it to the stage. Alongside the band’s residency at Wonder Bar, the group has been focusing on more intimate gigs, embracing the spontaneity that comes with playing alongside one another.
“We’re gonna be playing a bunch of casual gigs. I think one thing I really respect about these other guys is that we’re all very willing to sit back and learn, like, 100 songs, and then go do gigs where we just call out songs and play them. And I think that’s a fun thing to do,” Muhler said.
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