Built around his soulful, worn-in voice and wrapped in tender harmonies, Alex Coley & Afterlove explore the elemental tension between joy and pain; heartache and healing; what was and what will be.

For Alex, the song “Courage and Crime” places him in a specific time and place. At the beginning of the pandemic, he would walk to the ocean, and because we weren’t allowed on beaches at that time, he’d get as close as he could without stepping on the sand and hide in the tall grass, careful not to disturb the sandpipers. But the landscape doesn’t really speak to what the song is about, it just places it. The song is more about negligence and complacency – the kind that comes from being so consumed by something that you forget to blink. 

“Courage and Crime” was his moment of realization that he hadn’t read the news, or gone on a date, or asked a friend a good question for who knows how long. So, it’s a song about what gets in the way of all those things. 

“There can be such a thin line between courage and cowardice sometimes,” explains Alex. “And that line can be so unclear. That’s what the title is trying to speak to. Different people could perceive the same behavior or action as courageous or harmful, different people could perceive the same inaction as cowardice or restraint. This title is a reflective question, am I practicing self care or am I being a coward?”