Los Angeles alt-rock band Starling is excited to announce their new EP, Forgive Me, out June 27, 2025 via San Antonio’s Sunday Drive Records. Heralding the announcement is “I Can Be Convinced,” a hard-hitting but sickly sweet departure from their sparse and airy dreamscapes. Today’s release sees the four-piece examine an all-consuming love and the comfort one can find in confinement. Soaring guitars, blistering hi-hats and bandleader Kasha Souter Willett’s saultering vocals push the song towards sonic chaos.
“Smothered. Wrapped up in a warm blanket so tightly you cannot move. A song written about needing stillness, to be told no, to be confined all in a confused love,” Starling say. “Kasha did not intend the song to take such an upbeat direction when she brought it to the band. Although it is a sad and yearning song, the beat and arrangement made this song our lead single.”
WATCH THE OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO FOR “I CAN BE CONVINCED”
LISTEN TO “I CAN BE CONVINCED”
PRE-ORDER FORGIVE ME,
The official music video for “I Can Be Convinced” premieres today exclusively via Flood Magazine, which was filmed in Los Angeles, CA, and directed by David Milan Kelly, featuring an array of ballerinas. Starling told Flood, “The I Can Be Convinced music video came together with a lot of hard work from our friends who believed in the project, scraping all resources to make it happen. David Milan Kelly is a close friend of ours who directed the video and worked with us to create a visually interesting music video that honored the feeling and matched the pacing of the song. David and Kasha both separately had the thought to add ballet dancers to the mix, so when it was brought up by Kasha, they knew it had to come to fruition. From the big white skirt Kasha found at a thrift store not knowing what it would be used for at the time of purchase, to the dancers who came ready to improvise and learn poses on the spot; as much planning as we did a lot of this came together by trusting the process and allowing things to fall into place.”
Starling has kept busy since their inception in 2023, steadily releasing music and playing shows on the West Coast. Their debut EP, 2324, arrived last fall via tastemaking tape label Pleasure Tapes. Serving as a compilation of their singles from 2023 and 2024, the project features fan favorite songs like “Bottlebrush Tree” and “Falling Down a Mystery Hillside.”
Having recently finished up a run of shows with fellow LA band Cryogeyser, Starling will support Flooding at El Cid next week on May 6. For more information, follow Starling on Instagram at @starlingband.
STARLING
FORGIVE ME,
SUNDAY DRIVE RECORDS
Release date: June 27, 2025
1. Quiet
2. I Can Be Convinced – WATCH
3. My Love
4. 25
5. No Frown
6. Slow Down
7. Keep It
ABOUT STARLING:
Starling is a four-piece Alternative band born and based in Los Angeles, CA, creating music with a soft heaviness, weaving from grunge to songwriter to shoegaze. The band’s absolute genre is hard to pin, but the feel is a general yearning for contentment, a person, a place. Combining bedroom warped production with angular leads and rich vocal melodies, Starling offers a uniquely vulnerable and enthralling style of rock.
Lead singer and guitarist Kasha Souter Willett started the project in 2023 without a vision of what it would become. In May 2024, Starling officially formed with three more integral members – Erik Sathrum Johnson, Grace Rolek and Gitai Vinshtok. Their first EP 2324 was released in September 2024.
Confusion, frustration, love and loss are all expressed throughout Starling’s new EP, Forgive Me,. Written over the course of about a year, the LA band recorded themselves in various sheds, apartments, and garages. The EP was mixed by drummer Erik Sathrum Johnson, artwork was shot by the band and their friends, and then mastered by Greg Obis (MJ Lenderman, Wishy, Duster).
Songs like “Quiet” start off with a slow and delicate melody, and then explode in sound halfway through. The guitars in the song were recorded in the middle of summer in a garage with no AC—a physically intense, almost spiritual experience that bleeds into the recording. The lead single, “I Can Be Convinced,” is a sad and yearning song, with a need to be still; yet ironically, it’s one of the most upbeat songs on the EP.
The EP closes with the nearly seven-minute “Keep It” a track Starling had been performing since early 2024. Lyrically charged with frustration, it builds tension through eerie, hushed verses that give way to a loud, distorted chorus—showcasing the band’s ability to channel emotion through dynamic contrast.
With Forgive Me, Starling has crafted a deeply personal and fully DIY EP, shaping every sonic detail themselves. The result is a project where every melody, rhythm, and raw feeling is intentionally placed and unmistakably theirs.
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