The Happy Fits have been through it and returned to tell the tale.
The one-time trio debuted in 2016 with the EP Awfully Apeelin’, whose viral success convinced co-founders and childhood friends Calvin Langman (vocals/cello) and Ross Monteith (guitar/vocals) to drop out of school in New Jersey and make music full time. Drummer Luke Davis, a session player on the EP, soon joined as a full band member.
Three albums and extensive touring later, the band announced in February 2024 that Monteith was leaving, to be replaced by touring musicians Nico Rose (guitar/vocals) and Raina Mullen (guitar/vocals). Later in the year, Davis stepped away from touring to address his struggles with alcohol, and Langman’s relationship of seven years ended. It was fair to question whether the band could survive the turmoil.
The answer arrives September 19 in the form of the now-quartet’s new album Lovesick, an atomic sunburst of unleashed emotion that finds the revamped and re-energized group further supplemented by a small orchestra and session bassist Graham Orbe.
The Happy Fits’ vibe is pop melodrama, the kind of catchy, melodic, musical and theatrical acting-out that would make Freddie Mercury smile with recognition, set to their unique configuration employing cello as a lead instrument. Think a chunk of Fun., a hint of The Killers, a touch of Young The Giant, a dash of Paramore, and a healthy pinch of Freddie’s dramatics and sass.
Kickoff cut “Do You See Me?” feels like it captures all of the band’s moods at once, opening gentle and acoustic before billowing outward steadily into an orchestral explosion. It also sums up the album’s lyrical concerns neatly, portraying love as a kind of contagion that both excites and burdens. The former is the focus of “Everything You Do,” a driving, exuberant number featuring big, shiny guitars, galloping drums and whole-band gang vocals. Mullen takes a verse on lead vocals as well, expanding the band’s sonic vocabulary.
The same happens on “Lovesick #1 (Misery),” a manic anti-love screed whose infatuated narrator is desperate to “escape this hell you’ve put me in”; it’s nothing if not over the top. In between, “Cruel Power” delivers a harsh rant about a fading love feeling like torture as the narrator holds on “to the bitter end.”
From there, the album settles into something of a pattern. You’ve got your headlong anthems (“The Nerve,” “Miss You,” “Shake Me,” “Wild In Love,” “Blackhole”), your swoony ballads (“I Could Stare at You for Hours,” “Sarah’s Song,” “Superior,” “Wrong About Me”) and a couple of experiments. “I Still Think I Love You” features pulsing cello and backbeat, tension that explodes at the chorus, while closer “I Remember” employs sunny, lilting guitar and an emotive Langman vocal to achieve an almost U2-like liftoff.
Co-produced by Ayad Al Adhamy and Langman, Lovesick ultimately feels like an album where less might have been more; the musical and lyrical themes explored across these 15 songs are mostly similar and, effective as the individual tracks can be, as you get deeper into the album they start to feel like rewrites of one another.
That said, the sound and feel The Happy Fits employ on Lovesick is brash, exciting, and consistently entertaining; they’re like a vaudeville act that defies you to look away. And the new lineup shows great promise here as their four voices and burgeoning energy propel the group into a new era.