Boston’s Gollylagging are back, and this time they’re not sugarcoating a thing. The DIY indie rock quartet just dropped “Jackknife,” a tender, guitar-forward reckoning with the slow death of a close friendship — and yeah, it hurts in all the right ways.

Where recent single “Bronco” leaned into the band’s fuzz-drenched, post-hardcore muscle (Chasing Sundays called it “an absolute scorcher”), “Jackknife” pulls the volume back just enough to let the ache land. Cutting, layered electric guitar riffs weave around melancholic vocals as the four-piece — Jake Regulbuto (vocals, guitar), Jules Skiffington (guitar), Andrew Garas (drums) and Joey Lorant (bass) — settle into the strange, adult grief of realizing a relationship simply can’t go back to what it was.

“‘Jackknife’ is about the aftermath of friendship fallouts,” says Regulbuto. “You can want the best for people but know your relationship to them can’t be the same as it used to be.” It’s the kind of line that hits harder the older you get, and Gollylagging deliver it with a hooky chorus and some of the sharpest melodic guitar work they’ve committed to tape.

Getting there wasn’t easy. “This one was a tough one to get right,” drummer Andrew Garas admits. “We recorded everything for it in a short six hours and really had to put in a lot of time re-recording things and revising the mix to get it how we wanted it to sound. Our producer, Rowan, helped tremendously and put up with us asking for 10+ revisions on it.” That kind of obsessive tinkering shows — every guitar line feels intentional, every drum fill earned.

The accompanying video, directed and edited by bassist Joey Lorant, ditches any cinematic pretense in favor of pure hangout energy. The band mimes and goofs their way through the track in their neighborhood park, capturing what Lorant describes as “how it feels for us to play the song live, fun and light.”

Watch “Jackknife” here: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Gollylagging+Jackknife+official+video

Gollylagging have spent the last several years grinding it out across New England’s DIY circuit, following their 2023 split EP fauna (with going222jail and Dino Gala) and 2024’s Dry Rot with a steady stream of singles. Their sound — a scrappy, thoughtful synthesis of shoegaze, bedroom pop, punk and alt-country, filtered through obvious devotion to Dinosaur Jr., Pavement, Swirlies and Alex G (with, they insist, some Lil Wayne and Future in the rotation too) — keeps getting sharper with every release.

If you’re anywhere near the Northeast, you’ve got two chances to catch them next month:

June 19 — Boston, MA — Brighton Music Hall (with Dino Gala, warmachine, clifford)
June 20 — New York, NY — TBA (with Carrying and Wulfer)

“Jackknife” is out now. Stream it, cry a little, text that person you’ve been meaning to text. Or don’t. Gollylagging get it either way.