With the right amount of confidence, you can turn lies into facts and disdain into envy—a concept that pop-rock band Rivals explored in their latest single, “Porcelain Face.” The song, which debuted last Friday, is the band’s first release in almost a year after a successful 2024, where they toured the U.S. on their “World’s Worst Valentine Tour,” supported Point North as one of the openers on their recent tour, and came out with powerful hits such as “World’s Worst Valentine” and “ROAM.”
In “Porcelain Face,” front-woman Kalie Wolfe calls out the toxicity of fake people and how she has to act like them to get ahead in the music industry, despite it being a horrible system she doesn’t believe in. She develops an inflated sense of self-confidence to try to impress the people who can make her career excel, something she has unfortunately had to learn how to do during her 11 years in Rivals. But slowly, she starts to get cracks on her stoic “porcelain face” as the facade starts to chip, and she reveals that “who they’ve grown to love’s who I hate.”
Rivals (made up of Wolfe and drummer Josh Alves) has never had a song miss the mark. The two-piece band from Los Angeles has flown under the radar for far too long and deserves more acknowledgement. However, as implied in the song, it’s not enough to just make good music. It means having to have a pretty face to boost your brand and acting like someone you’re not. Wolfe sings, “Dressing like the rich and the fancy // Private jets to places I can't pronouncy // It's a counterfeit life // I've been living a lie.” In the chorus, she examines how much this has all gone to her head, and while she doesn’t “plan on coming down,” she sings that she doesn’t really have a choice as the “cracks still find a way // Across my porcelain face.”
A day after the song’s release, Wolfe wrote a letter to herself and posted it on the band’s Instagram. In it, she details where she was two years ago and many of the hardships Rivals faced, including the departure of two band members and how their tour van repeatedly broke down. Wolfe wrote that she was proud of herself for not giving up despite the constant setbacks, which currently seem to be paying off for the band. She was recently called to fill in as the vocalist for Nevertel as their singer, Jeremy Michael, was sick with pneumonia while on tour supporting Sleep Theory. Rivals will also open for Archers on “The Temporary High Tour,” with the first date being a set at Summerfest in Milwaukee on July 5.
