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SUB*T
How My Own Voice Sounds (s/r)
Add date: 5.5.2026
Release date: 5.1.2026
How My Own Voice Sounds follows the release of Sub\*T’s 2024 EP Spring Skin, which was produced by Momma’s Aron Kobayashi Ritch, and 2021’s So Green, which had Bully’s Alicia Bognanno at the helm. Their first full-length comes on the heels of seven years of touring, writing, and rewriting. “We’ve spent a long time with a lot of these songs,” they explain. “We never really sat down with the intention of writing an album from the ground up, we’ve just been building our catalog for years.” As the duo sharpened their skills, they learned to sit with a song, giving it space to breathe and time to reveal itself. As a result, the 10 tracks on How My Own Voice Sounds feel completely baked, every melodic descent and every turn in the lyrics patiently accounted for.
“The album title itself is more of a statement, but it poses a question we’ve been asking ourselves since we first started our band,” Sub\*T explains. “How does my own voice sound? Not in a literal way. We know that much. But how do I want to use it, what do I want to say, how do I want to express all the details of my life so that I can recognize the sound of my own voice and understand myself? This album represents all the ways you can answer that to ultimately hear yourself as you really are.” The duo uses their actual voices in myriad creative ways as they chase these revelations; listen closely to How My Own Voice Sounds and you’ll hear many vocal layers, spoken words, harmonies, laughing, whistling and whispers. “Those are really intentional choices that play off the album title, trying to push through all that noise,” they say.
Such vocal play is woven into the gorgeous textures of “Mirror Image,” where Bennett follows Alcantara’s lead with a harmony that’s semi-whispered, the low but present buzz of a phone in someone else’s pocket: _“Like a phantom limb, never too direct.” _“This song is about looking deep within yourself and facing the hard parts you aren’t proud of,” the duo says. “We did something fun on the bridge–it’s actually a reversal of our voices. That’s one of our favorite moments on the album. It really sounds like a gained emotional freedom.” The grungy and pummeling “Overcomplicate” represents two sides of yourself talking to each other: “There’s a second whispered vocal layer in the bridge, and we saw that as being the other voice in someone's head–the negative, cynical voice that you have to fight against.”
While there’s obvious depth and a strong undercurrent of melancholy in Sub\*T’s music—on just this release, they confront shadows like vibrato and fear, loss and growth, nostalgia and grief—what simmers beneath is Bennett and Alcantara's willingness to crack a joke in the middle of an otherwise somber moment. This shared humor is found in the bite of “Imaginal Cells,” a song that laughs at inflated male egos, and the storytelling of “Wide Load,” which actually started as a strangely poetic email their friend received from her Grandma Dottie years ago: _“I got my oil changed and that’s as social as I get.” (Wide Load was the name of Grandma Dottie’s cat). “You have to laugh at hard situations sometimes,” Bennett says. “Sometimes when you’re singing about sad stuff, making a sad song about it makes it worse.” Far from a sign of immaturity, being down to clown is indicative of their maturity as songwriters; it’s a product of the confidence they worked so hard to cultivate. “Three years ago, if we would have brought those lyrics to each other, we would almost be too afraid that they’re too on the nose or too honest. A lot of the record is, you know, you’re a bit insecure, but on the other side of the coin, there’s this confidence.”
Bennett and Alcantara each write on their own, but they often feel their songs come to life when voiced by the other. “I just feel like she can transform it in a way I couldn’t by myself,” Alcantara says of Bennett. “And when I hear it through her voice, I hear it in a different way. It’s almost like I gain confidence. Like, the lyrics can be great, but if it doesn’t make you feel the magic, it’s not ready.” It’s an interesting turn, how one writer’s words achieve authenticity when sung by another’s voice. It might be Bennett singing in “Standing Room,” but it was Alcantara who wrote the majority of that song about the experience of being at her mom’s funeral. Ultimately, the emotion Bennett gave it by applying her own experiences as well made Alcantara connect to the song even more. They coined one of the LP tracks “Sister Species” as a way of describing someone whom you can see a lot of yourself in, or seeing a version of yourself you can become–an apt reflection of their own bond.
This closeness, the sense of feminine camaraderie between Alcantara and Bennett, is central to Sub\*T’s appeal. Listening to How My Own Voice Sounds, you get the sense of mutual affection and support that undergirds not only the songs, but the pair’s shared discipline as songwriters, patience as artists, and chemistry as friends. Credit it to shared traumas or their years spent on stan Twitter vying for 1D and The 1975. While their tastes have evolved—they credit Juliana Hatfield and Liz Phair as inspiring both their writing and their attitude—their ability to stand alongside one another has only strengthened.
So this is how Sub\*T learned to define the sound of their own voices. They gave it time. They sat with it. They allowed artistic truth to lead the way. And ultimately, they played and played and played. Because when you love music, when you’re really a fan, that’s just what you do.
Photos by: Elise Bergmann