The Pretty Flowers Photo credit: Sami Drasin
Los Angeles–based indie rock band The Pretty Flowers return with their new single “Came Back Kicking,” a bracing, big-hearted anthem that introduces their forthcoming album Never Felt Bitter, out March 27, 2026 on Chicago’s Forge Again Records.
Written shortly after songwriter Noah Green relocated from Los Angeles’ Koreatown, where he lived for 13 years, to the quiet foothill city of Sierra Madre, “Came Back Kicking” captures a moment of transition, reckoning, and renewed momentum.
“It was one of the first songs I wrote after moving,” Green explains. “I wanted something that felt direct and had a lot of room to breathe musically and that, maybe in some other decade or dimension, could have been a hit on the radio.” Inspired by the sweep of Echo & the Bunnymen and the “big music” of The Waterboys, the track balances widescreen melodicism with grounded urgency. Lyrically, it reflects on “accepting your place in the world and acknowledging the bones of history that are always beneath our feet.”
Formed in Los Angeles in 2013, The Pretty Flowers solidified their lineup in 2018: Green (vocals, guitar), Sam Tiger (bass, backing vocals), Jake Gideon (guitar, backing vocals), and Sean Johnson (drums, percussion). Their debut album, Why Trains Crash, arrived that same year to rave reviews, followed by 2023’s A Company Sleeve, which further cemented their reputation for all-killer, no-filler indie rock rooted in melody, grit, and emotional clarity.
Never Felt Bitter is the sound of a band sharpened by hundreds of nights playing bars and clubs across Southern California and beyond. It fuses pop instinct with raw physicality, delivering anthems for outsiders and underdogs with a sense of lived-in authority. The album emerged amid ongoing upheaval in Los Angeles from political unrest to fires to ICE raids, an atmosphere that seeps into its emotional core. “There’s a sense of urgency, fear, and confusion in these songs,” says Johnson. “Like each one might be the last song we write, or this might be the last album. If anything, it’s the most present we’ve ever been.”
Though echoes of The Replacements, Teenage Fanclub, and Wilco surface throughout their catalog, The Pretty Flowers resist nostalgia. Their aim isn’t to chase eras or trends, but to make music that exists outside of time. “When your goals as a band don’t include fame and fortune,” says Gideon, “it gives you the freedom to follow your instincts and focus on the real reasons you were compelled to make art.” Green agrees: “The career is not the point. You make music and place it into the stream of musical history. A release date is just its first day. Maybe it’s picked up now, or maybe 20 years from now but from that point on, it has a life.”
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