Today, the Montreal-based trio Afternoon Bike Ride dropped their third album called Running With Scissors via Friends of Friends Music.
The record blends moody electro-pop textures with tender folk sensibilities, resulting in an emotional and immersive listen that captures the band’s signature balance of warmth and introspection.
About the album by afternoon bike ride:
Running With Scissors, a genre-blurring exploration of life’s most tender and tumultuous moments.
Beneath the album’s existential musings lies an intimate anchor: Lia Kurihara’s role as a caregiver for her father, who lived with dementia.
Though for the last four years she’s dedicated much of her time outside of music to her dad’s needs, she’s also brought him into the band’s daily routine. He spent a 5 week writing retreat with them that resulted in their second album and he attended nearly all of their practices while building their first live show. Sadly, he passed away this summer.
This reality seeps into the cracks of Running With Scissors, particularly in the title track, where the act of “running” mirrors the frantic, Sisyphean effort to preserve memories that slip like sand.
The scissors—sharp, precarious—become a metaphor for the duality of love and loss: the careful tenderness of holding someone’s fading story, and the guilt of wondering if you’re cutting away parts of yourself in the process.
The album doesn’t just explore grief in the abstract; it documents the daily ache of watching a loved one dissolve, while still grasping for the fleeting moments of recognition.
At its core, Running with Scissors is about navigating the chaos of existence with open hands—sometimes catching, sometimes fumbling, but always feeling deeply.
Across the twelve tracks, raw, emotional acoustic elements are fused with subtle electronic layers and indie rock grunge, creating a textured blend that feels as vast and intimate as the album’s themes.
Running With Scissors gets: 📷📷📷📷📷📷📷📷/10.
Afternoon Bike Ride – Running With Scissors [Streaming]
