There’s something strangely wistful about Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls, even before you press play. Maybe it’s the name — it feels like an artifact from another time, equal parts beautiful and unsettling. That contradiction runs deep through Chokecherry’s debut album, a record that sounds like it’s been fermenting for years under the fluorescent hum of late-night diners, art-school basements, and foggy San Francisco mornings.
Produced by Chris Coady (Beach House, Yeah Yeah Yeahs), along with Christopher Grant and Zach Tuch, the LP captures the sonic DNA of the Bay Area in 2025 — chaotic, compassionate, politically disillusioned, but stubbornly alive. It’s a portrait of empathy in decay, and a declaration that rock music, when filtered through queer and post-internet realities, still has teeth.
A Scene in Bloom and Collapse
Chokecherry have been quietly building their mythology for a while: playing DIY shows across the coast, releasing a string of singles that blurred dream-pop haze with punk immediacy, and refusing to settle neatly into any genre tag. With Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls, they finally deliver the full picture — not a concept album, but a document of existing in a time when nothing feels stable, not love, not art, not even yourself.
Frontperson E. Scarlett Levinson summed it up best: “It’s about heartbreak over the loss of childhood and the imagined future you might have had when you were young, because that doesn’t exist anymore.” That grief — for innocence, for hope — haunts every reverb-drenched note here.
From the Dream to the Scream
The album opens with “February”, a slow, cinematic wash of guitars that immediately situates the listener in Chokecherry’s world — all echo and ache, as if the air itself is vibrating with memory. It’s the kind of opener that doesn’t demand attention; it absorbs it. The production leans lush but not indulgent, with Coady’s signature shimmer balanced against Levinson’s emotionally frayed vocal delivery.
From there, “Goldmine” and “Secrets” form a one-two punch of introspection and escape.
“Goldmine,” released earlier this summer, remains one of the record’s most striking tracks. It’s evocative and volatile at once — a fever dream about clinging to a relationship that burns brighter than it should. “Don’t bite, I’m on the other side / Gold mine, tastes just like a fire,” Levinson sings, their voice floating through layers of gauzy distortion. It’s a love song dressed as a cautionary tale: beauty that singes on contact.
If “Goldmine” was about drowning in memory, “Secrets” is about swimming away. A shoegaze-pop anthem of autonomy, it finds freedom in vanishing — “I am running for it / Why is it important for you to know?” The track’s pulse feels like a night drive through the mountains, headlights cutting through fog, destination unknown. The chorus—“I escape from view, I’ll let you wonder”—turns detachment into defiance. In a world obsessed with visibility, Chokecherry romanticize the power of disappearing.
Then comes “Major Threat,” and everything blows open. The distortion thickens, the tempo spikes, and suddenly the dreamy detachment of earlier songs gives way to fury. “Give it to me straight / I’m your fucking weight,” Levinson snarls, channeling betrayal into catharsis. It’s not a nod to the hardcore legends Minor Threat so much as a reclamation: Chokecherry’s “Major Threat” is punk filtered through empathy, a scream from someone who still believes that honesty is radical. The track’s breakdown — “Cut me open, sweetly, make it hurt” — feels both violent and vulnerable, collapsing the distance between pain and power.
The Heart of Rot and Renewal
Across ten tracks, Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls moves like an emotional cycle: the haze of reflection, the spark of anger, the numb descent that follows. Even its title hints at the duality — sweetness inevitably spoils, but decay breeds growth.
“Porcelain Warrior” carries that tension beautifully. It’s one of the album’s quieter moments, balancing fragility and resilience. Levinson’s vocals quiver above shimmering guitars as they sing about armor that cracks but still gleams. It’s the record’s emotional midpoint — the calm before the final unraveling.
The title track, “Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls,” hits like a thesis statement: swelling guitars, collapsing rhythms, and a chorus that feels almost cinematic in its scale. “Everything is being stripped before our very eyes,” Levinson sings, echoing their earlier statement from the press release. There’s grief in that awareness, but also something liberating. Chokecherry are not offering solutions — they’re simply witnessing the decay, translating it into something human.
By the time we reach the closer, “You Love It When,” the chaos has quieted. The band leans into melody again, closing not with rage but resignation. It’s a fitting end: tender, imperfect, a sigh rather than a scream. The fruit has fallen, and what’s left is silence — or maybe the soft buzz of amplifiers cooling down.
Sound and Vision
What sets Chokecherry apart isn’t just their genre fluidity — though their blend of shoegaze, post-rock, and punk is masterfully cohesive — it’s their emotional sincerity. Where many indie acts chase aesthetic reminiscence, Chokecherry sound like they’re living through the collapse they describe. Every reverb tail feels intentional, every lyric like it was torn from a diary entry.
The band’s sonic lineage is easy to trace — bits of Slowdive, Deftones, Broken Social Scene, and The Smashing Pumpkins ripple through their arrangements — but they repurpose those influences into something that feels distinctly modern. The production never hides the human beneath the noise; even at its loudest, the record breathes.
Visually and thematically, the trio are building their own mythology. Their videos for “Goldmine,” “Secrets,” and “Major Threat” (directed by Jack Boston and Whitney Otte) mirror the record’s contrasts — soft focus and sharp edges, intimacy and confrontation. You get the sense that Chokecherry see their music as part of a larger cinematic narrative, not just soundtracks to feelings but living documents of them.
What It All Means
Listening to Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls feels like standing in the middle of a storm and realizing you’ve stopped trying to run. It’s not an easy record — emotionally or sonically — but it’s an honest one. Chokecherry don’t sugarcoat the rot; they let it bloom. The album doesn’t offer escapism so much as it offers recognition: yes, the world is cruel and strange, but there’s still beauty in the noise.
At a time when empathy feels endangered, Chokecherry make it sound urgent again. Their debut captures what it means to feel too much and keep going anyway.
Rating: 8.4 / 10
🎧 Stream or purchase the album:
👉 Chokecherry – Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls (Bandcamp)
👉 Fearless Records Official Site
🎟️ See them live – Fall 2025 Tour: Chokecherry Official Tour Page
December 14, 2025 – Hard Luck Bar, Toronto, ON
with The Sewing Club | All Ages | Doors 7 PM | Show 8 PM | Tickets via Live Nation
I’m Drew, the founder and editor of Front of the Stage. I have a strong love for music and photography, which started at a very young age. There’s just something I love about experiencing live music and capturing memories that will last a lifetime, and that’s how Front of the Stage came to be.
