Aly & AJ were writing “What It Feels Like” — a song about learning to admire “the beauty” of their physical changes — when Aly went into labor with her son Jack. On Friday, the sister duo released the beach rocky single, which hears the empowered sisters celebrate “new life stages.”
“I want to know what it feels like/To let beauty fade, well that’s okay/I’m not afraid,” the duo sings on the track’s powerful chorus. “What It Feels Like” is set to be featured on their upcoming album Silver Deliverer, out March 28. The duo say that the new track “embraces new life stages as a woman in our objectifying culture.”
“[It’s about] the beauty in noticing physical changes and resolving to admire them, prioritizing positivity, and using family and sisterhood as a foundation to lean on during difficult mental health moments,” they continue in a press release. “It is also a response to an industry that doesn’t tend to value women as they grow through life and represents a sound that is authentically two sisters who want to make rock music at any cost.”
The sisters told Rolling Stone late last year that they finished writing the album with producer Jonathan Wilson while Aly was pregnant. “It really feels like our next baby and it will be out,” said AJ of Silver Deliverer. “It’s so beautiful when you start a new album cycle because it’s seeing fans again and interacting with people we love.”
Aly & AJ wrote the song in Topanga Canyon, an area of Los Angeles affected by the fires currently ravaging the county. On Instagram, the pair said they felt “devastated” by what many of their friends — and the same neighborhood where the song was recorded — are going through.
“[It’s] still very much in danger and needs all of the resources we can find,” the duo wrote. “If listening to music seems like it would help, it’s here. Our hearts are with you and we are praying for a break in all of this pain.”
“What It Feels Like” follows their standalone September single, “Sirens,” which was written about their experience surviving a mass shooting in Sacramento that claimed six lives. “I know it’s a hot topic politically, but it shouldn’t be,” Aly told Rolling Stone at the time. “It should be something that we can all speak about openly and rationally because it is something that affects everyone.”
Silver Deliverer will follow the duo’s 2023 LP, With Love From. Their previous record, A Touch of the Beat Gets You Up on Your Feet Gets You Out and Then Into the Sun, arrived in 2021.
