Album Review: Don’t @ Me by RECLAWED (by Emma Prew)

RECLAWED are a new Brooklyn, New York, based indie punk band who I recently discovered after their lead vocalist and piano/organ/synth player, Erica Clayton, shared their first single in the Fest Friends group on Facebook. They mentioned having previously been in several Fest adjacent bands such as Binary Heart, Weird At Last and Freya Wilcox & The Howl – the latter whom I was very sad to only discover after they’d broken up – and I was intrigued enough to give the single a listen right away. It was an instant hit with me and I was excited the learn that a full EP was only another week away.

On 14th January, RECLAWED released their debut EP titled Don’t @ Me. The EP was fully written, recorded, mixed and mastered remotely during 2020 and 2021 but I, at least, would not have been able to tell that. This has got to be the best new music I’ve heard so far this year and I’m excited to share why!

Don’t @ Me kicks off with a short, catchy and super melodic country-folk sounding song called When It Came To You. It’s definitely not the sound I was expecting to hear but I really love it all the same. The song is about reflecting on a difficult breakdown of a relationship in the past but looking for the positives in this and certainly not regretting what happened – ‘I don't regret a single word I said to you, You were actin' out the scene that you wanted to’. Next up is A Lie We Tell Ourselves which was the first single from the EP and thus the first song I heard from the band. Gone are the country-like sounds of the previous track and instead we have an energetic, passionate and slightly angsty tune that immediately grabs your attention. Erica really belts the lyrics out alongside crunchy guitars and some rhythmic drumming that sounds almost like clapping. Like When It Came To You, this is another song that seems to have a positive spin to it. At least, how I’m interpreting the song is that you should try to live your life to the fullest and not be bogged down by feeling like you need to be in a relationship or live a certain way. There’s a similar theme to the third song, Breathe Out, as Erica sings ‘I have no reason not to be happy’. It’s a feeling I know well myself. A repetitive guitar riff opens up the track and soon serves as a steady backing to the vocals which absolutely take the forefront in this song. Erica has a wonderful voice and is supported by some subtle backing vocals at points which really adds to the overall feel of the song. Breathe Out is perhaps one of the slower paced tracks on the EP but that doesn’t stop it from packing a punch.

Wasted sees RECLAWED getting amped up again for an upbeat guitar and synth driven head bopper of a song. You can instantly hear the pent up anger and frustration in Erica’s voice as they sing the opening lines ‘You said you had it figured out, You said "it's just a gap year", You said you had a plan for it all, You said you wanted to save’. There’s a distinct bite to the vocal style that reminds of Deanna Belos of Sincere Engineer which is, obviously, no bad thing. Wasted is arguably the catchiest and most earwormy song on Don’t @ Me and it just puts a massive smile on my face every time I listen to it. Wrong About You opens solely with piano – once again showcasing a different sort of sound, this is definitely not an EP of seven songs that all sound the same – before the vocals and drums come in. It’s fairly slow-paced and subdued to begin with but there’s a feeling that things are building, up to when Erica sings ‘I'll admit when I was wrong, Oh, I was wrong’ and the song is transformed into a full band number, no longer restrained. There’s some great musicianship on display in this track from the band’s multiple guitarists (Freya Wilcox, Zachary Walden, Tom Malinowski – although I’m not sure they’re specifically all playing on this one track) as well as Erica’s piano/organ/synth playing. Wrong About You takes the listener on quite the journey and what a journey it is.

The penultimate song of Don’t @ Me is what I feel can only be described as an emotional, piano-led, indie power ballad. Your Girlfriend Sucks opens with the line ‘Hello? It was me, I've been looking for you’ – presumably a nod Lionel Ritchie (and maybe Adele?) – sung in a soft and gentle voice. By the second verse however there’s a bit of that bite I mentioned in Wasted being injected into the vocals. Your Girlfriend Sucks is far from your traditional punk rock song, vocals accompanied purely by drums and piano, but there’s still a punk spirit to it all. The song is about wanting to make sure your friend is okay when they’re having a rough time, particularly when you don’t think their partner is good for them. It’s a tricky subject matter to convey in a song but I hope some listeners can find comfort in the words. The EP does what all good records should do and finishes with a bang. Don’t Come Around is an angry and gutsy track that is just begging to be sung along to at the top of your lungs – maybe at a future Fest. Don’t Come Around is about drawing the line at the end of a relationship that ended badly and admitting that, similarly to A Lie We Tell Ourselves, ‘I’d rather be alone, Than waste time waiting around on a change, That’s never gonna come’. Erica really seems to let out a lot of frustration throughout the track, not least when repeating ‘I didn’t ask you to stay’ at the end of the song. This is another track that I think will be highly relatable and a comfort to many listeners. The track, and the EP as a whole, feel empowering to me and that’s definitely something I look for in music.

I almost can’t believe just how much I enjoyed this EP. I’ve listened to it on repeat for several days now and still can’t get enough. There’s a lot of variety on offer but I love it all. This is a release, and a band, that I’m going to be raving about to everyone and anyone who will listen for months to come. Don’t @ Me by RECLAWED is the best new music I’ve heard in some time – certainly so far this year – and I highly encourage you to check it out.

Stream and download Don’t @ Me on Bandcamp here.

Like RECLAWED on Facebook here.

This review was written by Emma Prew.