Self-described as bubble-grunge, the Boston-based quartet Sophie’s Body — led by Sophie McMinn and featuring Dylan Hughes (drums), Harry Van Der Meer (bass), and Adam Hurt (guitar) — announce their debut album Zero, which will be released independently on October 30. They also share their latest single, ‘Long Term Loaner’, an expression of anxiety with change wrapped up in clever wordplay, wobbly guitars, and Sophie’s signature melodic vocals.
‘Long Term Loaner’ came to be when McMinn broke her beloved guitar pedal — a TC Electronics Hall of Fame — right before a 4-show weekender tour. “I was distraught,” she says, especially because the tragic emergency occurred just after she had graduated college in 2025, a time marking the beginning of a whole life of uncertainty and surprises. Luckily, her experience working at a local Guitar Center taught her she had a sweet warranty deal to help her out. “Long story short, I was left with a “long-term loaner” pedal, given my circumstances.”
But, as Sophie’s Body blare into the second verse, McMinn explores a darker, more fraught side of the whole situation. “I started playing around with the homophone “loner”, and that’s where I get into my angst a bit more,” she reflects. “This was not a fun period in my life, I was feeling lonely, and really grasping for purpose post-college graduation.”
Zero is an “accidental concept album, in a weird way,” explains McMinn. Until she graduated college in Boston, MA, she had never slowed down to think about what she wanted out of life. Music was an anchor for her life: “I grew up playing classical music, I went to performing arts high school, and then continued studying music in college,” she admits. But, after falling in love with the DIY and grunge scene in Boston, she realized time and developing personal taste forced her to embrace change and let life guide her to new opportunities. She continues:
“Zero is a collection of songs about experiences — songs about how I’m feeling. At first glance (or listen), you might not see the connecting threads, but in every song, there is this dark shadow, great looming stress, gnawing feeling of uncertainty, and honest-to-god primal fear of failing before I’ve even had the chance to start. Life and the search for meaning is this amorphous, constantly shifting shape, and it’s horrible, and I hate it. Yet, it’s beautiful, and when I play this music and face it head on, I smile because it gave me this gift. Trying to make angles out of a shape like that is really hard, and I don’t think I’ll ever figure it out, but that’s alright with me, because it means I’ll have infinite opportunities to try.”
Like a soon-to-be butterfly, Zero wraps itself up in a tense ball of angst and energy, but once its potential finally cracks through, and all its guts have more room to function easily, then it can get lost in the whirlwind of the open air.
Zero:
- Eyes
- Cowboy On A Cross
- Long Term Loaner
- Concrete/Plastic
- Star
- Socialyte Zero
- In Defense Of
- Indigo
