Nearly 20 years since the release of their last album, British trio Bôa is back with their new single “Walk With Me.” The release came just days after the group announced their upcoming North American tour.
“Walk With Me” hearkens back to Bôa’s greatest strength — a brand of rock-driven nostalgia. This strength fueled their 1998 single “Duvet,” to go viral, with more than 290,000 TikTok videos using it as a soundtrack.
Thanks to “Duvet’s” surprise success more than two decades after its initial release, Bôa found themselves into the mainstream, despite being virtually inactive as a band since their 2005 album Get There.
This sudden rejuvenation of interest prompted the band to consider if they still had something more to give an audience that had exploded after the recent resurgence, according to an interview with Variety.
After the band’s viral resurgence, Nettwerk Music’s Sameer Sadhu reached out and asked them about getting back in the studio to capitalize on the moment, he said in an interview with Variety. The band agreed, with surprisingly few doubts.
“They were truly so happy that people were discovering and relating to their song 20 years later,” Sadhu said in an interview with Variety.
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The result was a period where Bôa teased their upcoming music on social media through a series of posts that encouraged fans to pre-save the single, which dropped Friday.
“Walk With Me” looks and feels like a new beginning for a band with no doubts about what they want to sound like.
An electric guitar-led chord progression, complete with moving root notes and stagnant higher tones evoke memories of the band’s 2001 album Twilight.
Frontwoman Jasmine Rodgers’ driven, harmonized chorus ignites the song’s classic Bôa manner, delivering nostalgia to an audience that may not have been born when the band was last active.
For a new generation of Bôa fans, “Walk With Me” is exactly that. With new-wave and Britpop influences woven into instrumentals that could only be called Bôa-esque, the single could easily fit in Twilight while paving a path forward into a new era of Bôa.
Capitalizing on “Duvet’s” timelessness, the band has drawn on where its success lies — in catchy, rhythmic verses and powerful, distorted choruses complemented by uplifting, sentimental lyrics.
As Rodgers launches into the “Walk With Me’s” second chorus with the titular line, the song’s heaviness begins on open cymbal hits, punctuated with bass drum kicks and an overdriven guitar at the forefront.
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However, this heaviness is where the band makes its departure. “Walk With Me” is Bôa, but it’s no “Duvet,” and while that song’s success may be the reason for the band’s reformation, the new release shows a promise of dense tones and a renewed fire in Bôa’s music.
“Share this space and walk with me,” Rodgers sings, and the lyrics sound like an invitation to fans — there is more to look forward to on this journey.
