A Not Good, Not Bad, But Really Quite Great Song About A Break Up

There is something so gentle and considered that is laced throughout Not Good, Not Bad’s latest single We Should Just Be Friends that takes your hand from the first guitar hook and carries you through the rest of the song. In just under three minutes the Novocastrian five piece package up the nice parts, the bad parts, the plain awkward parts and the broken parts of a relationship, serving them up as a brilliant slice of singalong guitar pop.

There’s nothing nice about break ups, even the mutually agreeable, needed to be done ones. They are a tumultuous tussle through memories and faded feelings trying to burn bright again versus a constant feeling that it’s probably for the best you stop doing this to each other. We Should Just Be Friends manages to capture this tussle, soften it and make it sound in equal parts deeply relatable but entirely right. Break-ups suck, but this song is very, very good.

Strung along on intelligently layered guitar lines, vocal harmonies and hook laden moments of flourish that keep you coming back, We Should Just Be Friends, is the kind of weighted and polished song that results in a purely faultless piece of music. You never find yourself reaching for more, or wanting the song to step up, it finds each moment of need and executes perfectly before you can ask anything of it.

Closing on the lyric “I’m getting so tired of this honesty honestly, we should just be friends” is such a perfect summation of the amicable breakup that it lingers with you long after first listen.

Sitting somewhere between Middle Kids and The Beths, Not Bad, Not Good offer so much more than their name suggests. A brilliant band that promise bright and blisteringly smart songs.