Chloe Moriondo’s New Album ‘Oyster’ is ‘An Outpouring of Pent-Up Energy’ — And Her Best Project To Date

“I’ve been bursting at the seams to be able to talk about this stuff,” Chloe Moriondo tells Billboard of her upcoming album, Oyster. The singer-songwriter shifted her aesthetic across her three previous albums, from the ukulele twee on 2018’s Rabbit Hearted. to heartfelt pop-punk on 2021’s Blood Bunny to fuzzed-out, radio-ready melodies on 2022’s SUCKERPUNCH.

Oyster, due out Mar. 28 on Public Consumption/Atlantic Music Group, functions as an amalgamation of those sounds, while also featuring the 22-year-old’s most vulnerable lyrics by far. “This feels like a very special project,” says Moriondo. “I’m nervous, as I always am before releasing things, but especially because this one’s so personal.”

On Wednesday (Feb. 19), Moriondo released the second preview of the album with “Hate It,” a gleefully unhinged pop track with a creeping bass line and an obsessive protagonist (“Wanna wear your body and trade places / Everybody loves you, and I hate it,” Moriondo sings on the chorus). After showcasing a sardonic streak on SUCKERPUNCH, Moriondo lets the dark humor simmer on the track while the listener is urged to hum along.

“It’s one of the only non-aquatic songs off the album,” Moriondo says of “Hate It,” which is surrounded by songs titled “7 Seas,” “Abyss” and “Shoreline” on Oyster. “I did stick very thematically with the ocean, water and all things aquatic in general. But ‘Hate It’ was an oddball, and it just proved to me that I’m going to continue writing murderous pop love songs till I die, I’m pretty sure. And we just couldn’t leave her off the album.”

Moriondo began working on the new album in early 2023, tinkering on songs for weeks at a time in London and Los Angeles, while also processing the worst breakup of her life. Heartbreak, and how to manage its aftereffects, serves as the undercurrent of Oyster, from the mournful piano ballad “Pond” to the reflective bedroom-pop track “Raw” to the breathtaking “Siren Calling,” which offers closure within the final track.

“It was very cathartic to be able to pour out everything that had been going on in my brain and in my life,” Moriondo notes. “It was nerve-wracking, in some ways. I kind of felt like a baby sea turtle — flopping around, confused — for the first couple sessions and the first couple songs. I felt a little bit nervous, but it also felt like an outpouring of pent-up energy and emotion that I was excited to finally be able to release.”

Not only does Oyster represent the cohesive front-to-back listen of Moriondo’s career, but the singer-songwriter says that she wants every aspect of this album campaign to feel part of a whole — and that she became more hands-on with the planning of execution of this rollout than she’s ever been.

“With this album, I’ve just learned how crucial it can be to be as involved as possible creatively, with every facet of the album,” she says. “With an album like Blood Bunny or Rabbit Hearted., I was so young, and I say this as a term of endearment, but I was still very ignorant to a lot of things. I don’t think I poured as much of myself as I could have into a lot of my previous stuff, in terms of the touring, the vinyl packaging, just the life and blood of it. So I think I’m much more connected creatively to this album than I have been.”

After releasing “Shoreline” as the first taste of Oyster last month, Moriondo also announced a spring headlining tour, which kicks off on Apr. 24 in Detroit. She says that ideas for performing these new songs live have dominated her thoughts for months, and she hopes that her shows are as freeing for her fans as making this album proved to be for her.

“The people who come to my shows, whether they’re longtime fans or new fans or boyfriends or parents of fans, can expect to experience a very immersive show,” Moriondo says with a laugh. “A lot of dancing, a lot of potential crying, and something reminiscent of the Jellyfish Jam from Spongebob.”

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