Premiere: Old Joy Share New Single “Pocket”
New Album Why Burn Bridges You Can Live Under is Out on September 18th via Candlepin Records
Jul 09, 2026 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Vanessa Valadez
Indie singer/songwriter Alex Reindl is a longtime veteran of Chicago’s DIY scene, playing in a string of scrappy indie rock outfits including his own project, Old Joy. Reindl shared Old Joy’s first full-length album, Trash Your Life, in 2021, and returned over the following years with a playful stylistic range of projects, dipping into power pop, orchestral chamber pop, lo-fi, and, most recently, noise experiments. After sharing his 2023 album, Too Sick For School, and his 2024 EP, again & again & again, Reindl is back this fall with another new album, Why Burn Bridges You Can Live Under.
Last month, Old Joy shared the record’s lead single, “Gut Shot,” and today they’re sharing a new track, “Pocket,” premiering with Under the Radar.
“Pocket” is a chiming and wistful guitar pop tune that makes full use of Reindl’s talent for catchy melody. It pulls on the same classic pop songwriting tricks as ‘60s pop revivalists like The Lemon Twigs or 2nd Grade, showing off a preternatural talent for conjuring plaintive charms from jangly guitars. You can hear bits of breezy power pop and jangle pop in the melodies, intermingling with Reindl’s tremulous Elliott Smith-esque vocal tone. The results are instantly catchy and sharply written, but Reindl also enlaces the track with a warm, bittersweet sadness.
Lyrically, the track reflects on dashed dreams, with Reindl slowly coming to accept the cruel realities that everything might not work out: “You can sit in the sadness, say you can stand it, but you don’t want this life / You want love in the violence, noise in the silence, nights to say “you’re right,” / And when you’re feeling good you think maybe you could just climb onto a higher plane / But when you meet your maker and see she’s a fake, you’re gonna slide right on down again.”
Reindl explains, “This song is about being a failure and being okay with it. It’s about coming to terms with the fact that you’ll never really be what you thought you’d be, living in a fantasy, and the point where that collides with your real life. It’s kind of mimicking the high you get after a really good show, or a period of your life where you really feel like you could be the thing you want to be. A successful filmmaker, or musician, or stockbroker, whatever. ‘There ain’t no shame in coming down,’ is that true, or is that just something you tell yourself? I still don’t know. I mean, I can’t say it any better than I already tried to in the song: ‘You’re in love with a legend and you won’t fail to mention that you had a pretty good band once. But if someone smiles, it’s just for a while, then you’re back to being somebody’s slut.’”
Check out the song below. Why Burn Bridges You Can Live Under is out on September 18th via Canlepin Records.
English (US) · 