Break-ups don’t have to be complicated. Sometimes, you can still have fun, even if you know what’s coming next.
That’s the basis of the new track from local indie-pop artist Burry, “No Hard Feelings”. Released on Friday, Aug. 21 alongside a music video, this is the second single from their next EP, coming later this year.
Produced by Neon Dream’s Adrian Morris, the song details a relationship the speaker doesn’t see moving forward, but still carrying on with for whatever little fun it could bring. It’s a break-up song that doesn’t sound like your typical break-up song: there’s no melodrama, no harsh words, and nothing to look back on particularly fondly. As Burry says in the song, “Maybe I’m just bored.”
The sentiment is that some breakups just aren’t as dramatic as the term might imply. Sometimes the feelings just aren’t there. It was this kind of situation that led Burry to penning the lyrics for the song.
“I got the idea a couple years ago when I was dating a girl,” says Burry of the song. “She was super fun and the relationship was fun, but I didn’t really see it going anywhere past that. I was like, well, I’ll just ride this out while it’s really fun, and then we can part ways amicably. No hard feelings.”
The idea rested in Burry’s back pocket for about two years, coming to light when they sat down for a writing session with Morris.
“We ran into each other at a Jamie Fine show at the Marquee,” they say. “I was with Ria (Mae), and Ria was like, do you know Adrian? She introduced us, and then at the end of the show, I was like, damn, I want to write songs like this. He was like, OK, what are you doing tomorrow?”
Burry went over to Morris’ home studio, where he showed them a few instrumentals he had made.
“He played the first little bit of the ‘No Hard Feelings’ instrumental and I was like, oh, that’s it, immediately,” says Burry. “He kept working on the track as I was pumping out lyrics. We had a demo done in like, three hours.
“It was literally just like, click. He’s so incredible to work with.”
What came from the partnership was the track’s delightfully poppy instrumental with a drum beat that has Morris’ name all over it. It pushes “No Hard Feelings” from its lyrical focus on romantic mundanity into excitement for whatever comes next. The bow on top is Burry’s vocals, flowing gracefully over the beat, making the song a potential pop hit.
After-school fight club
While the song itself is more than enough, the music video paired with it elevates “No Hard Feelings” even further. Admittedly, Burry says it contextually has nothing to do with the theme of the song, but that may actually be one of the video’s greatest strengths.
Directed by Jeff Miller, the video is a spoof of early-to-mid 2000s high school comedy films. Burry, credited as the Loser in the credits, finds a way to “fight back” against the bullies in their classroom through an after-school fight club, though it ultimately ends with Burry’s bloodied face resting in the grass.
“When I first heard the demo, I could picture the video so vividly that I wanted to do this,” they say. “If Mean Girls was Fight Club. The movie Bottoms was a huge inspiration, too. I wanted to make it so it didn’t have a happy ending. I find all these nostalgic 2000’s movies have this happy ending, and I thought it would be funny to take a darker twist to that.”
The disconnect between the songs message and the video is emblematic of the themes of the song and Burry’s satirical focus for the video.
In one sense, the relationship described in the song is so beyond over for the speaker that the focus of its accompaniment has shifted into a completely different reality; one where the relationship in question has no presence and has been replaced by the mangled plot of a 2000s teen comedy.
In a meta-textual sense, the video is, like the song, taking a medium that’s been clichéd to death (2000s high school comedies and break-up songs) and twisting them into something entirely new, telling a different story with some of the same parts. That may not have been the intention, but pairing this particular song with this particular video does wonders for both.
If you want to catch this new single live, Burry will be performing at Loud Women Fest at the Seahorse Tavern on Oct. 24 and is also set to play Nova Scotia Music Week in Truro, Nov. 12-15. Burry is also nominated for two Music Nova Scotia awards this year: one for Pop Recording of the Year for their 2025 EP “I’m tired” and Music Video of the Year for their single “TV Glow”.
When asked about the name, or any details, on their upcoming EP, Burry chose not to share anything just yet, other than it can be expected to release in the late fall.
