Macy Rodman has us feeling like “Unbelievable Animals”

Iconic Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter, artist, and showgirl Macy Rodman’s newest album Unbelievable Animals will be released this Friday August 27 via Shamir’s Accidental Popstar Records. The new collection has already received acclaim from PAPER, Artforum, GLAAD, Jezebel, NYLON, them., MTV Logo NewNowNext and more  around early singles “Love Me!” and “Rock ’N’ Roll Gay Guy”.

Putting a modern touch on the classic rock ‘n’ roll epic sound, Macy has unleashed the incredibly catchy new album single “Punk Rock Boyfriend” (ft. Shamir). An immediate dance floor rocker, the song gives a nostalgic nod to the high and hijinks of young punk love. Maacy shares, “I wrote this song thinking about a high school crush that I wished I’d had the courage to ask out at the time. It’s kind of like a fan fiction of a personal memory. When Shamir agreed to make an appearance on the track, I was so overjoyed not only because I’m a huge fan obviously, but because the guitar they added to the track gave the song this gloss of nostalgia that I was trying to evoke but hadn’t figured out how to capture yet. It all locked into place like magic once we recorded all of our parts.

The massive, sugary, propulsive sound of the record — confession and heartbreak set to club-ready beats with ‘90s radio rock inflections — is the sound of reemergence, of rebirth, the return to the dance floor. Liz Phair, Faith Hill, Cher, Madonna, and more heroes of that era spiritually inhabit its tracks, where slick pop production and the sneering punk attitudes of Marianne Faithful and PJ Harvey mingle at the ‘90s New York nightclub.

Macy creates worlds that are not surreal, but hyperreal — where everything is false so everything is true, where the relativity of truth becomes defined by the ecstatic moment of performance and experience. Moving to New York from remote Juneau, Alaska to initially pursue her dreams in fashion, the underlying trans rage of repressed youth — searching for a space of belonging, reaching through media for escape — becomes a theme of the Brooklyn resident’s work, though her media landscape these days is populated by pop stars and rom coms. Couple this with the absurdism of fantasy, a purposeful schizophrenia of a slew of characters that inhabit her songs, and you get closer to her new album. “The title ‘Unbelievable Animals’ prevailed because while writing the record, I saw my life in past loves laid out in front of me like a Discovery Channel special and it made me feel like I wasn’t alone in my feelings. We are all just Unbelievable Animals,” Macy says.