Dan Webb returns with the 5-song Dead Wendy’s EP, his second release of the year. Like on 2024’s Difficult Creek and Ohio Coyotes, he’s joined by longtime friend Adam Nurre—his earliest band mate from his middle school days in the ’90s. On this one, the pair (Webb on vocals and guitar, Nurre handling bass, drums, keys, percussion, and vocals) lean back into their early compass point: faster, louder, more aggressive, a blend of ’90s punk-, indie and alt rock.

The title is rooted in memory—Webb reflecting on how the gym and school where he first played shows are now gone, the town dissolved, the Wendy’s shut down. That sense of loss threads through the songs. Bad Checks and Tired both wrestle with burnout, the first through the metaphor of years of “dining out on bad checks,” the second like a brain sputtering on fumes, questioning what success even means. Forests of Leng, inspired by True Detective Season Three, stands out with its haunted paranoia and moral reckoning and overall catchiness.

If there was any doubt, Dan Webb makes music that’s grounded, human, and alive. It rocks because it’s real, and it sticks because the stories hit home. And for the first time in years, he’s bringing those stories to vinyl: Dead Wendy’s will be pressed on 7” and should become available sometime next year.

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