Pinegrove’s 2015 compilation Everything So Far began with Evan Hall singing, “I resolve to make new friends/I like my old ones but I fucked up so I’ll start again.” It was boisterous and optimistic and rightfully so; making new friends in one’s twenties can be simply a matter of resolve. But it gets harder with every year into adulthood, and this past February, the British Journal of Psychology and Pinegrove’s “Old Friends” came to the same conclusion as to why that is: Intelligent people become too goal-oriented and less vulnerable or, as Hall puts it, “Too caught up in my own shit/That’s how every outcome’s such a comedown.”

“Old Friends” finds Hall in one of his solipsistic moods, making hyper-detailed observations of his surroundings yet feeling disconnected from the people closest to him. “I should call my parents when I think of them/Should tell my friends when I love them,” he sighs, the should making it unclear whether he’s had an epiphany or just another clever thought that will come and go like a joke about the Port Authority. Even as the economic and romantic anxieties of millennials continue to be exhaustively documented, “Old Friends” feels like a fresh take—maybe making new friends isn't as important as keeping the old ones. –Ian Cohen