S.C.A.B. sounds like a city cracked open at the quietest, loudest hour of the night. Formed in Ridgewood, Queens, the band pulls directly from the lived-in tension of New York life—the kind that hums beneath flickering streetlights and rides the last train home. Frontman Sean Camargo writes as if he’s catching moments mid-float: a glance exchanged on a subway platform, the heaviness of a partner’s silence, the slow grief that comes with realizing things have changed for good. What started as an acronym has evolved into something more symbolic—a hardened edge formed through years of personal friction, collective growing pains, and the stubborn act of sticking around long enough to transform.
On their new album, Somebody In New York Loves You!, S.C.A.B. turns inward while expanding outward at the same time. The songs embrace vulnerability without dissolving into abstraction, drawing from Camargo’s psychedelic realizations, deeply personal journal entries, and moments of emotional rupture that feel too honest to ignore. Tracks like the blissed-out “Strawberry Jam” and the anthemic ache of “Red Chair” explore love in its many forms—romantic, familial, and self-directed—with a clarity that feels both wide-eyed and weathered. “The only truth I could really feel was love,” Camargo says, “and everything I did was either trying to run away from it or get closer.” That tension—between escape and surrender—sits at the heart of the record.
Much of the album emerged during a creative surge sparked by a psychic reading that left Camargo feeling strangely affirmed and untethered, and that sense of magical realism lingers throughout. Everyday objects—a cassette player, a worn book of matches, a Coney Island ride card—take on talismanic weight, while dreams of lost parents returning blur the line between memory and imagination. Sonically, the band nods to early-2000s stadium rock, refracted through New York’s post-punk alleyways. At times, S.C.A.B. sounds massive, like they’re reaching for a field-sized crowd; at others, the songs feel eerily intimate, like overhearing a voice memo meant for no one else.
That balance comes into sharp focus on the band’s newest single, “LOVE,” the most direct and open-hearted moment on the record. It’s pure, unfiltered gratitude—for the people, places, and fleeting moments that make life feel survivable, even beautiful. The song is a love letter to New York, to family, to loss, and to the act of starting over when you don’t have a map. Sampson Dahl’s accompanying video captures that spirit perfectly: filmed in his laundromat space on beta film, it unfolds as a scrappy, one-shot collage that feels like Pee-wee’s Playhouse colliding with a Britpop daydream. There’s something deeply nostalgic and handmade about it, like stumbling across an old VHS tape where joy and chaos are spliced together without explanation.
With Somebody In New York Loves You!, S.C.A.B. makes room for contradiction—songs that are personal but expansive, naive but knowing, imaginative yet grounded. After years of false starts, rain-soaked gigs, and quiet doubt, the band emerges sounding clear-headed and fully present. The album doesn’t just reflect New York; it breathes with it, holds your gaze, and says, without flinching, somebody here loves you.
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