stillhungry

stillhungry began as an exercise in songwriting between three long-time New Jersey friends and musicians. Matteo DeBenedetti, Jenna Murphy, and Erik Kase Romero have been part of Asbury Park’s fertile music scene for many years, but it wasn’t until 2019 that the trio began collaborating through this project. After a series of standalone singles trailing from that first eureka moment, stillhungry’s self-titled LP is a cohesive set that manages to build on the group’s grand experiment while managing to stand alone with its tremendous scope, focus, and beating heart.

Recorded entirely by the band, the forces propelling stillhungry together have driven narrators and arrangements apart, situations sputtering out like confetti after the party. The album pivots around the many-fanged heads of anxiety and human error, watching them snarl around growing love (“Paper Lanterns”), how other people are perceived (“Bethesda”), and ultimately, how each of us grapple with and process painful seasons in life (“First Place”). Such interior monologues and exterior soundscapes go hand in hand, where alt-country muscle goes toe to toe with the nebulous expanse of indie rock’s most pensive and vulnerable moments.

Built with the splendor of the tri-state area in mind, stillhungry has used their longtime bond to create something evermore lasting: a triumphant and harrowing lens into what real love is in all its forms, and where to turn when the celebration’s through.