Watch Bleary Play ‘Bug’ at County Q Productions

Nashville dream-pop four-piece Bleary is likely familiar to frequent Cream readers — you might have picked up a copy of their debut EP Gates this summer, or seen them at shows around town like Spewfest IV. If you haven’t seen them, you can watch them in action above. They feature in the latest release in Monkey Riot Recordings’ Q Sessions, a series of live-in-studio vids filmed at Nashville’s County Q Productions. (There’s some good stuff in there, from Only, Ted Drozdowski’s Coyote Motel, Tape Deck Mountain and more.) And even if you know Bleary’s catalog well, this is a special treat. The song they play, “Bug,” hasn’t been released before.

I might have latched onto the bug theme a little too heavily here, but the image of the string lights surrounding the band suggests fireflies — or maybe just the lights that attract the unlucky ones to their deaths. The lyrics certainly evoke that image, as Peter Mercer croons “I keep on flying into the light” before he bursts into the song’s hook for the first time: “I could disappear completely / In the time it takes to count it down from three / And I’m wasting, receding /How do I get back?” The lyrics are sung gently against the churn of the music, adding to the song’s air of insecurity. The instrumentation, however, comes across as anything but vulnerable, as Mercer and fellow singer-guitarist Callan Dwan trade snarling licks alongside Luke Fedorko’s pounding drums and Taro Yamazaki’s solid bass lines.

Although Bleary doesn’t have any shows on the books right now, you can follow the band’s Facebook and Instagram profiles for more. You can also stream and purchase Gates via the Bandcamp embed below.