Faith Crisis Pt 1 by Middle Kids

A huge influence on what I listen to is my local publicly-funded radio station KEXP. If you live in the Seattle area, you have no legit reason to NOT listen to – and I don’t say this lightly – the greatest radio station in the world while you drive around town. But no matter where you live, you can always stream the station live from kexp.org, or you can use their streaming archive to listen to anything they played on the air from the previous two weeks. So, really, nobody reading this has any excuse for not listening to KEXP.

It’s because of KEXP I first heard of the band here at #26, Sydney, Australia’s Middle Kids, back in 2017. And it’s because of KEXP, because of morning DJ (and Associate Program Director) John Richards, that I fell in love with the Middle Kids in 2024. Specifically, there is one song from which this love has grown: “Bend,” featured in the video above. It certainly helps that this song was the most-played song by John in the Morning in 2024. Go ahead and hit play above, listen in full, then come back to this point. I’ll wait.

Stellar, no? This song is not indicative of the other songs on Faith Crisis, and I have to admit, the trio’s “alternative” sound on the rest of the album creates a barrier of entry that probably puts off a lot of folks who read this blog at first. But once you hear the album a few times, it grows on you, in you, and around you to create this bouncy, joyous, love of life, melodic, polished rock & roll tour de force.

The band is made up of husband-and-wife duo Hannah Joy (vocals and guitar) and Tim Fitz (bass), plus drummer Harry Day (who went to school with Joy)¹. Faith Crisis, Pt. 1 is their third album, and the first to come after the birth of Joy and Fitz’s two children. They talk a bit about how their personal lives influenced this record in their KEXP performance from earlier this year.

In addition to “Bend,” featured above, the band has released six (6!) additional videos over the past year in promotion of Faith Crisis:

Despite the fact that 2024 has now come and gone, there’s no way this will be the last time I hear “Bend” or the Middle Kids. Perhaps this is the first time you’re hearing of them, and I hope you’ll join me in seeking them out in the future.

^{1. With those names, its crazy to me they didn’t name themselves Joy Fitz Day or something like that, but of course they didn’t talk to me about it. If any of you know the band at all, feel free to put them in touch with my lawyer and we can work something out I’m sure.↩}