AloneKitty Turns Up the Volume on Reinvention with Sad Not Sad

AloneKitty’s Sad Not Sad, out later this month, is the sound of someone forcing themselves forward. The Toronto project began in upheaval—job gone, relationship over, stability erased—and quickly became a lifeline. These songs don’t romanticize collapse. They document it plainly, with guitars pushed to their breaking point.

The first single, “Stay The Same,” makes that intent clear. Its serrated guitar layers shift between tension and release, vocals blurred just enough to fuse emotion with noise. The track resists transformation in name but captures the friction of change in sound—abrasive, melodic, and unflinching.

Though originally a solo outlet, AloneKitty now operates as a trio with Stefan on drums and Mike on bass. The band recorded the album live at Toronto’s Canterbury Music Company on a vintage 1976 NEVE console, cutting twelve songs in two days with minimal takes. That approach resists the algorithmic polish dominating indie production, trading quantized perfection for instinct and bleed.

The sessions were produced by Josh Korody (Beliefs), mixed by Luke Schindler (Alexisonfire, Broken Social Scene), and mastered by Slowdive’s Simon Scott. That lineup adds weight to the record’s shoegaze DNA, even as AloneKitty’s writing veers toward the urgency of punk and post-hardcore. Schindler describes the songs as “something I’d have in my rotation,” while Scott calls them repeat listens—praise that resonates coming from an architect of the genre.

Sad Not Sad isn’t an album about escape. It confronts instability directly, using volume and repetition as a form of endurance. For AloneKitty, the act of moving forward is the point—and the sound of survival is louder than ever.

Pre-order the album on Bandcamp