Star Moles’ Emily Moales has this voice that causes certain words to leave her lips backlit, ringed in fuzzy halos. Sometimes that word is “God” or “pray,” and sometimes it’s “dentist,” “emails,” or “bulbous.” On Highway to Hell, the 2026 album that planted a flag for the Philadelphia-based songwriter’s humble, hyperlocal scene, Moales got into biblical scuffles with bagel machines, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, and the clothes in her own wardrobe. “Born Again,” a new track to mark her signing to Dead Oceans, contends with a distinctly Gen Z predicament: Your parents poured their hearts into raising you to reach your full potential, and now you work an email job. “We kiss you on your head, we dress you up real nice,” Moales laments, her use of first-person plural pronouns tilting into the Lovecraftian, “So you can send some emails and pencil in your life.”
There’s some “Beast of Burden” (hear that shaker lagging barely a millisecond behind the beat? Classic Stones) to the chug of “Born Again,” which sounds like it was recorded in a plush conversation pit at a West Philly house party. Moales and her regular producer Kevin Basko have the locked-in chemistry of lifelong friends; her piano and his guitar chatter back and forth like they’re catching up over the punch bowl. The classic rock roleplay could skew kitsch, but Moales and Basko play it loose and make it their own. “I wouldn’t say I’m religious, but I think sometimes my emotions are,” Moales said in the press release that accompanied “Born Again.” Lucky for her, she doesn’t have to bear the cross alone.
Correction: This review originally stated that Sam Sullivan and Jem Seidel also played on “Born Again.” All of the instruments were performed by Moales and Basko.
