W: Mandy Morgan
The Los Angeles music scene has always been a breeding ground for beautiful ruins, but few projects capture the specific, jagged intersection of fashion and fallout quite like Hysteria. The brainchild of bandleader Dakota Cosgrove, Hysteria has officially unleashed their latest single, “Angela.” It is a track that doesn’t just invite the listener in; it demands a reckoning, inching toward a sonic collapse only to find its footing in choruses so powerful they feel like a physical confrontation.
Produced by Photographic Memory—the sought-after hand behind the textures of artists like Wisp and Jane Remover—“Angela” is a masterclass in controlled chaos. The song picks up the thread from last year’s debut, “Reason to Pray,” further refining the band’s signature "urgent emo" sound. Guitars alternate between delicate twinkles and abrasive scrapes, creating a landscape that feels both nostalgic for the early-aughts and entirely futuristic. The rhythm section provides no safety net, featuring drums that kick with the frantic energy of a high-stakes match, unearthing raw tones that bolster Cosgrove’s confessional lyricism.
At the heart of the track is a brutal honesty. As Cosgrove explains, the song navigates the volatile space where every moment is simultaneously an ascension and a decline. “Angela is the year of your life you want to erase,” she says, describing a "sick desire to be broken and put back together." This duality—the "girl who you let destroy you"—is mirrored in the music’s movement from hushed, tender vulnerability to explosive, cathartic release. It is a song about the desperate cry to be loved, even when that love is a destructive force.
Hysteria’s identity is rooted in the reclamation of history. By adopting a name once used to pathologize and punish women for the depth of their emotions, the group transforms "feeling too much" into a source of power and resistance. They mine the deepest corners of the emo genre—drawing lineage from acts like Mineral and Sunny Day Real Estate—while aggressively pushing out its historically patriarchal center. In Hysteria’s world, emotion is not a weakness; it is a necessity.
The band’s aesthetic is as intentional as their sound, existing in a space of contradictions: gentle silhouettes set against loud distortion, and high-fashion glamour standing beside emotional ruin. This visual "armor" has served them well on stage, where they have already cemented their status as a "group to watch" following packed performances across California and Texas alongside rising peers like Voyeur and Her New Knife.
As Hysteria continues to charge forward, they are proving that they are more than just a musical act—they are a movement. For those looking to experience the catharsis in person, the four-piece is set to support electro-pop artist Tommy Fleece at El Cid in Los Angeles on February 26. If “Angela” is any indication, the night will be a vivid display of what happens when you stop running from the things that break you and start singing through them instead.