And all this time I’ve been hurting for you
Whatever I tried, it didn’t matter
And all of my heart has been aching for you
Gave all of my love – did it even matter?
There is something fitting about Jonny Pierce opening his new label Abysmal Records with a song about emotional nullification. The Drums have spent fifteen years turning romantic injury into bright, economical pop, yet It Didn’t Matter, a collaboration with Mareux, carries a colder sense of aftermath. Its title lands with the bluntness of a verdict delivered after the argument has ended, when language has been exhausted, and the abandoned person is left to rearrange the evidence.
Mareux’s presence is immediately legible. Aryan Ashtiani supplies synthesizers that glide with severe elegance, placing Pierce’s voice inside a glassy architecture of drum-machine momentum and bruised pop chords straight off the 80s pop charts. The production remains clean without becoming sterile; each element has room to move, while the song’s forward motion suggests somebody walking quickly through a city to avoid calling the person they are trying to forget. Pierce sings with the fragile directness that has long defined The Drums, though age has added a finer grain to his delivery. Foolishness, need, and disbelief are presented without disguise.
The song describes someone trapped in the aftermath of an unequal relationship, still longing for a partner who pushed them away without releasing them. Hurt, ashamed, and angry at themselves for needing love, they question whether their devotion, sacrifice, and enduring pain ever meant anything to the person they loved.
Pierce describes the session in unusually personal terms: “Not since writing my earliest music has a song come together so effortlessly. Whenever that happens, it makes me feel certain the song was meant to exist -that it needed to be here, for all of us. Mareux’s synthesizer wizardry threw me back to my teenage years, when almost everything I listened to was synthesizer-based music, especially synth-pop. His sounds, textures, and perfect pop chord changes reminded me of the soundtrack to such a tender time in my life – when I was desperate for love but just couldn’t find it, and synthesizers became the soundtrack to my sadness. This one is for those of us who keep banging our heads against the wall of another heart, only to be given nothing in return.”
The collaboration grants Mareux increasing space to move beyond the viral mythology of his Cure cover, “The Perfect Girl,” showcasing him as a composer whose precise synthesizer skills elevate another artist’s songwriting and emotion. A disciplined bassline, succinct percussion, and sighing keys anchor Pierce’s confession here, letting the melody carry the emotional weight that the production keeps in elegant balance.
Watch the visualizer for It Didn’t Matter below:
It Didn’t Matter‘s autobiographical charge belongs to a lineage of synth-pop where polished surfaces intensify private collapse, but Pierce and Ashtiani avoid empty period detail. Their shared instincts meet in the space between romantic candour and formal restraint, producing a track that feels immediate without sounding disposable.
As the first entry in a six-month series of collaborations, it gives Abysmal Records a persuasive opening statement. More importantly, it suggests that Pierce’s next phase may be built through exchange rather than isolation. It Didn’t Matter turns rejection into motion, carrying its unanswered question forward with poise, clarity and a quietly devastating hook.
Catch Mareux live this autumn:
- 09/19 — Santa Ana, CA — Observatory Festival Grounds with AFI, Kumo 99, and L.A. Witch
- 10/30 — London, UK — Hootananny Brixton
- 10/31 — Paris/Montreuil, France — Bal Chavaux
- 11/03 — Athens, Greece — Floyd Live Music Venue
- 11/05 — Istanbul, Turkey — IF Performance Hall Beşiktaş
- 11/07 — Tbilisi, Georgia — Academy
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