Earlier this year we introduced you to Personal Trainer, AKA Philadelphia trio Melina Harris, Molly Buckley and Alix Masters, when we wrote about their debut single, ‘Backyard‘. The band “offer sincere reserve and empowering energy within the same four minutes without any sense of contradiction,” we wrote, as the track managed to capture both the shyness and in-your-face verve of adolescence. “This push and pull between pressing forward and holding back is relevant right down to the core themes too, hesitancy and confidence battling for the upper hand.”
Personal Trainer are back with a brand new single, ‘What’s Left’. Again released via House of Feelings, the song builds upon the debut, channeling a sweet and sour punk that’s both playful and caustic. If ‘Backyard’ was a steady build towards the catharsis of the climax, then ‘What’s Left?’ finds a confident energy from the off. The result is like being air-dropped into a slumber party of best friends who, having barricaded themselves off from the outside world, have drawn up their own rules and codes on how to live. A space of openness and trust that allows an advance beyond conventions. A place to truly become yourself.
Which is not to say there is no uncertainty in the themes, but that the track serves as a tool of interrogation rather than confusion. “What is the difference between romantic and platonic partnership?” the band ask. “Between love and lust?” These concepts are not interchangable but often portrayed as intrinsically linked, something Personal Trainer set out to challenge. “We are told that true intimacy only exists if coupled with a youthful eroticism,” the band continue. “Simply put, attraction = love. And that when the lust fades, love has been lost. But is that true?”
‘What’s Left?’ attempts to answer the question in its title. To find out what remains once the busted flush of traditional wisdom around love and intimacy is burned to the ground. Perhaps autonomy could be found amid the ruins, and something healthier and more fulfilling can began to germinate from the ashes. “We know lust fades,” they conclude, “but we also know that pleasure doesn’t have to. Personal Trainer sees the rediscovery of pleasure as a radical act of resistance against the male gaze.”
‘What’s Left’ is out now on House of Feelings.
Photo by Lauren Moetell