ABOUT

Social Cinema didn’t want to rush their debut album. Its members knew it would reveal itself in time.

 

“It’s kind of like all of our albums already exist,” drummer Logan Bush says. “They’re out there, and we just have to go find them.” 

 

In early 2024, the power-pop quintet, with members based in Great Plains cities Wichita and Lincoln, sensed the pieces of their debut were coming together, and the studio sessions they booked that spring were meant to explore a pile of demos that had been collected in a folder shared among members, titled “album mode.” 

 

But it took releasing 22 songs in their first three years to reach that point — in the form of two EP’s and a compilation that grouped 10 somewhat disconnected tracks into one release, like a hip-hop mixtape would.

 

Despite the incomplete nature of compilations, Social Cinema’s first large batch of songs — 2023’s It’s Nice to Meet You — displayed a meticulous approach to songcraft and obvious artistic ambition, as on the band’s ultra-rhythmic breakout “John the Baptist,” or the backseat binge-drinking romp “Brown Paper Bags & Funny Faces,” which punctuates the band’s live shows with a climactic motorik jam. Both tracks feature ample studio tricks and ear-grabbing effects peppered in the mix.

 

Still, frontman Griffin Bush says many early Social Cinema songs existed primarily as material to fill setlists at their shows, which, for their part, have been the band’s undeniable strength from the start. Social Cinema are a force on stage, deploying tightly wound dance rhythms in the guise of rock songs while Griffin evangelizes at center stage, arms flailing and spouting vocally like a cross between King Krule and Joey Ramone. The band’s shows have won fans over with the visceral, nothing-left-on-the-table presentation of a group that has laboriously studied the makings of a great rock show, evidenced by their inclusion on NIVA’s 2025 “Live List,” a who’s who of top emerging live acts, alongside names like Doechii, Jessica Pratt and Mannequin Pussy.

 

With his band’s live show honed, Griffin eyed the next step: leveling up what they had been capable of capturing in the studio to that point. 

 

“The mindset was like, we haven’t put out our best stuff yet,” he says. “We can be better, you know? Because I think all five of us have the ability to put out really fucking good music.”

 

They elected to work again with producer Jeremy Wurst at Kansas City’s B-24 Studios, scheduling several sessions throughout 2024. After each visit, the band combed the results and considered how the songs could be sharpened — “to make the most interesting pop song possible in three minutes,” Griffin says.

 

For pop listeners looking for a bit more to chew on, the resulting LP, Don’t Get Lost, features a wealth of simultaneously at-odds and complementary instrumentation, whether that’s demonstrated by the band’s hard-panned, three-pronged guitar attack of Gang Of Four-esque chimes exchanged among guitarists Griffin, Mari Crisler and Reed Tiwald, or via the stop-start, drum-pad-aided grooves played by Logan Bush and bassist Austin Engler.

 

Each song on Don’t Get Lost is ultimately concerned with stuffing in as many hooky bits as possible, which often sends the songs in unexpected directions. Take second track, “Human Development,” which contains the elements of a normal pop song — there’s an intro, a verse and a chorus, albeit separated by several other distinct parts. Instead of returning from the chorus to a second verse, the song diverts into a maracas-infused instrument break whose only vocal part functions to bolster the song’s rhythm, not the song’s melody. It’s a delightfully adventurous move that makes the eventual explosive second chorus that much more gratifying. 

 

Not to mention, a noticeable majority of the LP’s songs feature some kind of instrumental outro, whether it be the slow-motion deconstruction of album opener “You Don’t Scare Me That Easy” or the dignified denouement of “Eloise” — a track also notable for boasting the album’s best guitar solo and for being one of the few that actually quiets down during the chorus.

 

Don’t Get Lost is unmistakably a pop album, but of a highly calculated strain, meant to hook you in at the surface level and designed to reward you with repeated listens. Its construction is a product of Griffin Bush’s exacting touch, not unlike those of obsessive power-pop scientists Ric Ocasek and Rivers Cuomo. You’ll appreciate how effective these songs are at grabbing and keeping your attention. 

 

Social Cinema have evolved here from their own self-prescribed characterization as a “live” band. While the live show will remain key to their identity, Don’t Get Lost is a triumph that earns themselves a new label: a “complete” band. 

 

This album is an exhibition of the best version of Social Cinema right now. That is, until they go hunting for the next one.

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'Don't Get Lost' is slated to release in September 2025.

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Written by Sam Crisler