One of our favourite bands here at HighClouds, Yumi Zouma have been quietly building up to something big this year. The Christchurch group have rolled out a steady stream of new singles — “Bashville On The Sugar,” “Blister,” and “Cross My Heart And Hope To Die” — and now we know where they all lead. A new sound for a new album. All the singles will indeed appear on No Love Lost To Kindness, the band’s fifth record and their first since 2022’s Present Tense. The new record promises a bolder, darker twist on their trademark shimmer, showing a band eager to expand their sound to new territories while staying true to what makes them so beloved.
The latest preview of that shift comes with “Drag,” a track that dives headfirst into muddy basslines, industrial synths, and raw emotion. Lyrically, it’s both confessional and defiant, tracing the push and pull of self-discipline, medication, and the struggle to appear “good” while battling inner turmoil. Vocalist Christie Simpson describes it as a message to her younger self, a reflection on grief, ADHD, and ultimately acceptance: “It’s a goodbye to the life I lived so long ‘inside the drag.’ It’s about releasing myself from the struggle, about letting go.” That intensity carries into the video, co-directed with Julian Vares, which channels the sleek paranoia of early-2000s thrillers and the techno-futurist aesthetic of a world on the edge of digital transformation. Watch the video below and stream the track via our Best Songs of 2025 playlist.
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