Florence Road place an immutable stake in the ground on “Heavy”

Comprising Lily Aron (vocals), Emma Brandon (guitar), Ailbhe Barry (bass) and Hannah Kelly (drums), it is no surprise that Florence Road are childhood friends. The unspoken chemistry and comprehension between the four-piece can only have been learned over formative years making music from the garden shed. It is these dynamic and inseparable bonds built when you are wide-eyed and sharing the all-consuming pangs of love, insecurity, hope, and anxiety for the first time that make you feel like you have dauntless strength to step out of your hometown and set forth into the world.

Indeed, “Heavy” was created on the band’s first trip to Los Angeles, a far cry from Wicklow, Ireland where they grew up. Written after a tumultuous fortnight for Aron, the track details a retrospective heartache that just seems to sting more pointedly and painfully with each passing day. “Called you up when I saw it / took a breath and I walked it off / Said it’s fine don’t you worry / hard to see when it’s blurrier,” she casually laments in the opening bars, but it’s not long before the chorus reveals that the conversation is simply all she has been able to think about since.

"Tell me it’s not that heavy,” she begs her lover, “Lie to my face and beg me not to cry… tell me that you don’t lie awake and think about it too.” Just as the emotional torment builds, the song erupts into a cacophony of guitars and woe in its bridge. A liberating, cathartic scream-along in the vein of Wolf Alice’s intensely-burning Blue Weekend or Olivia Rodrigo’s galvanising singles on Sour. In fact, the latter has already expressed her impress at the four-piece, alongside a co-sign from beabadoobee: a sure calling card of gen Z’s next it-band.

Having already enamoured a legion of followers transforming covers into their authentic sonic register, Florence Road have matured their signature, rousing alt-pop sound and are finally primed to release their own material. 2024 may have been about the ascendancy of the arthouse girl band – with a well-accoladed showing from The Last Dinner Party, and a smattering of festival billings for Wet Leg – but Florence Road are ensuring that energy is maintained well into 2025.