RILEY! recently announced their new EP To Live And Die In The American South which is set for release on 17th July 2026 via Pure Noise Records. Now the band have released their second single, Two Bucks ft. Eric Egan from Heart Attack Man.
“As a touring musician, you miss out on a lot of your home life, be it birthdays, anniversaries, or just hanging out with friends and loved ones- it sucks. But, you do it because, at the same time, it’s typically what gives a lot of us any real sense of purpose,” says Ryan Bluhm. “I sometimes feel like I don’t get any real world value out of touring all the time, but I’ve always had this deep-seated fear that when I die I’ll have not left any proof of life that’s at least meaningful in any way and when I get to travel all over the world and connect with thousands of people from all of these places through the music my friends and I write, I feel like this is the right thing to do. When we asked Eric to write a feature on this track, he expressed a lot of the same sentiments I had when we spoke about what this song was being written about. It’s nice to know I’m not crazy and it’s probably a pretty universal feeling in our little world!”
As an openly queer, progressive band in a deeply red state, Riley! have always built their own version of belonging. That spirit runs throughout To Live and Die in the American South, from its very title to the song themselves – deeply personal stories of isolation, connection and the eternal fight to feel seen. Outside the walls of their hometown, though, they’ve built connections that have made survival possible, growing alongside a fanbase that has found itself reflected in every sweat-soaked note as they’ve carved out their own communities.
Riley! are the kind of band that only could have come from somewhere far off the map – making music shaped by isolation, boredom, anxiety, friendship, and dreaming about what lies beyond the limits of their blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hometown. Their details may belong to the Rio Grande Valley deep in South Texas, but the feelings amplified through their hyper-modern spin on Midwest emo have carried them around the world, from self-booked headlining tours and bills with genre heavyweights.
Having formed with the current lineup in 2020, what’s followed on albums like 2021’s Already Fucked and 2024’s Keep Your Cool has been a steady transformation from scrappy cult favourite to one of modern emo’s most compelling young bands on the strength of twinkly textures from high-capoed guitars, raucous rhythm section energy and Bluhm’s highly personal storytelling.
Now, Riley! has levelled up on their Pure Noise Records debut, To Live And Die In The American South. Recorded in Austin, TX, alongside producer Phil Odom (Militarie Gun, Say Anything and a protegee of Grammy-winning producer Will Yip), the five-song EP finds Riley! embracing a more finely harnessed sound without losing any of their edge. “We were going for something a little bit more polished,” Bluhm explains. “Not everyone is necessarily into screaming emo music, so we wanted to make things a bit more digestible.”
That range comes into focus from the opening swell of Roll for Initiative, bursting in with off-kilter, syncopated energy and a thread of existential dread, while Another Round of Radical ‘Ritas, Please (ft. Tades Sanville of Hot Mulligan) zeroes in on the quiet spiral of feeling left out and left behind. Elsewhere, Two Bucks finds the band leaning into melody, its high, soaring harmonies bolstered by Eric Egan of Heart Attack Man; Backseat Bartender, featuring Gabe Wood of Saturdays at Your Place, taps into classic emo influences, and closer 73 Summers trades urgency for something more devastating and reflective as Bluhm wrestles with grief, loss and impermanence.
Riley! will be heading out on their headline run in North America starting this July before UK shows supporting label mates Ben Quad.
Riley! are vocalist/guitarist Ryan Bluhm (they/them), bassist Kris Gallardo (he/him) and drummer Cesar “Izzy” Izaguirre (they/them).
TWO BUCKS FT. ERIC EGAN FROM HEART ATTACK MAN – OUT NOW
https://purenoiserecs.lnk.to/Riley
TO LIVE AND DIE IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH EP – OUT JULY 17
https://purenoiserecs.lnk.to/Riley_Stores