Hank is the solo project of multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter Sara L’Abriola. Now, she is dropping another brilliant single simply titled “BUGS.” The song showcases Hank’s creative songwriting as they correlate their apartment bug problem to missing a past lover. It’s a sweet, romantic love song contrasted with images of pest control and shows LAbriola’s ability to create the most meaningful lyrics in the not just the most mundane but also the downright disgusting. 

On the new single, Hank shares: “BUGS is a song about the self-fulfilling prophecy of a roach problem when all you have is time on your hands to miss someone in a bug-infested Brooklyn loft. The song represents acceptance and how misery can be the only thing to actually get you there.”

“BUGS” follows Hank’s previous single, the upbeat pop banger “Good Guy Hard Life.”  Both songs are new material since the release of their debut EP, Call Me Hank, late last year. Call Me Hank—L’Abriola’s classically modern five-song debut under the name Hank, equally indebted to Brill Building pop and ultra-processed hyperpop—is a prepossessing coming-of-age snapshot. Questions of sobriety, pronouns, maturity, and empathy show L’Abriola wrestling with who they are in real time. At 24, they wonder if they are ready to grow up and settle down or if they are too young to feel so old? Is staying sober the best way to deal with a problem, or should she rush out of that party house for “a shot and a beer”? Can a very hard break-up be a new beginning when it only feels like the end? In 16 minutes, Call Me Hank convincingly poses decades of questions threaded together by a single experiential credo: You gotta live to find out, man.

Photo Courtesy: Carina Allen