Philadelphia – Modern Mystery

There’s a moment in “Manchild”, Gun-Shy Butterfly’s scathing new single, when the sarcasm curdles into something darker.

It’s the sound of the last straw breaking, the laugh you let out after being underestimated one too many times. It’s also the moment you realize this song is a reckoning of sorts.

Philadelphia based duo Julie Exter and Andrea Tarka White take no prisoners on this fuzzed-out, fire breathing alt-rock track that drips with wit, indignation and undeniable hooks.

What starts as a pointed eye-roll becomes a full on evisceration of entitled mediocrity, all set to a soundtrack that echoes the raw honesty of Hole and the punch of L7, with a melodic sensibility entirely their own.

But “Manchild” doesn’t just about calling out bad behavior—it’s about the emotional labor women are expected to do in response to it. The song’s brilliance lies in its refusal to smooth over that exhaustion. Instead, it puts it front and center, lets it roar and dares you to look away.

The lyrics are needle sharp here and they balance bitterness with clarity – there’s no vagueness and no metaphor to soften the blow. Just bold, clear language that hits like truth tends to – suddenly and without apology.

Production wise, it’s lean and loud. Every instrument has room to breathe, but it never lets up in intensity. The guitar tones snarl, the bass stalks just beneath the surface and Exter’s vocals command every inch of the mix.

“Manchild” then is a torch song for the pissed off and perpetually talked over. It’s a reminder that sometimes, the most powerful thing that you can do is tell the truth and crank the volume up while you do it.

About Gun-Shy Butterfly

Gun-Shy Butterfly is the Philadelphia based alt-rock duo of Julie Exter and Andrea Tarka White.

With a minimalist setup and a maximalist sound, the pair craft raw and riff-heavy anthems fueled by feminist fire and unfiltered emotion. Blending the grit of ’90s grunge with sharp lyrical wit, Gun-Shy Butterfly tackles everything from cultural exhaustion to personal reclamation. Always loud, always honest.

Their debut singles “Dark Side” and “Manchild” announce the arrival of a band unafraid to rage, reflect, and rip the volume right off.

Find out more on the Website

On their debut single, Philadelphia duo Gun-Shy Butterfly – the collaborative force of Julie Exter and Andrea Tarka White – make an unforgettable entrance.

With “Dark Side,” they summon the ghosts of ‘90s alt-rock and grunge not as a nostalgia act, but as a vehicle for urgent and lived truth. It’s gritty, melodic and emotionally unfiltered – a track for anyone who has been dismissed, diminished or erased and decided, finally, to stop apologizing.

Listen here:

From the opening bars, “Dark Side” makes its mission clear. A thick wall of fuzzed out guitar crashes forward, underscored by relentless pounding rhythms. Exter and White keep the structure lean, the parts tight, but the sound feels much bigger. Their vocals cut through the distortion with sharp, melodic urgency, the kind that makes you sit up and pay attention. Harmonies buzz, crackle and scorch and linger like smoke in the wake of a personal firestorm.

But what elevates “Dark Side” beyond a well-executed homage to Veruca Salt, The Breeders, or early Hole is the emotional precision. There is no coyness or artifice. Just clarity. And rage. And the slow burning strength that emerges when you finally accept that sometimes the only way forward is straight through your own wreckage.

At the heart of “Dark Side” is a searing narrative of loss and self-assertion. Andrea Tarka White, who penned the lyrics, pulls no punches in describing the song’s origin. It was a time when she lost everything – friends, community, her social identity – all in the fallout of a betrayal that left her isolated and angry. But rather than shrink from that anger, she leaned into it. She chose the more honest choice:

“Dark Side is about a moment in time when I lost absolutely everything: my friends, my social life, and my sense of self. People had to choose between me and a lying, cheating man, and they chose him. I was so angry, not just that I lost everything, but that he somehow didn’t.

At that moment realizing how bifurcated everything felt, him or me, right or wrong, dark or light, it changed something in me. I realized that love isn’t about being positive all the time. Or being nice. It’s about embracing all of who I am and moving forward. Which sometimes means standing up for myself and leaving people behind.”

In that spirit, “Dark Side” becomes more than a breakup song. It’s kind of like a cultural exorcism. It speaks to a wider exhaustion shared by many women (and others) who’ve been told, explicitly or otherwise, that survival must come with a smile, that pain should be polite, and that rage is somehow unseemly.

Gun-Shy Butterfly torpedoes that notion. Here, darkness is not weakness – it is armor. It’s clarity. It’s the fuel for transformation.

The title alone is a challenge to binary thinking- good/bad, victim/villain, light/dark. A butterfly that flinches but never stops moving. That duality threads through the song’s DNA and defines the band’s ethos.

And the DIY ethic behind the track only deepens its impact. Much of “Dark Side” was recorded in Exter’s basement, where raw takes became the backbone of the song’s visceral sound. Guitar tones were captured on the first try. An impressive feat that speaks to both musicians’ instinctive command of their instruments and their refusal to over-process the realness out of their work. Final vocal tracking was completed at The Daisy Corner and The Gradwell House, with mixing by Dave Downham and mastering by Kim Rosen (Knack Mastering) providing a final sheen that never sacrifices grit.

Gun-Shy Butterfly also offers something refreshingly rare in the current music landscape: a voice of women in midlife who are still making, growing and loudly refusing to disappear. Both Exter and White are mothers in their 40’s, navigating parenthood, work and creative life in tandem.

“Dark Side” is a song for anyone who has been gaslit into silence. For anyone who has walked away from everything they knew in order to reclaim who they are. For anyone who has learned, sometimes too late, that self-respect isn’t always gentle. And that’s okay!

Keep up with everything Gun-Shy Butterfly on the Website

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