Bug Moment‘s metamorphosis from a glitchy bedroom project to the city’s finest “emo-adjacent rock melancholia” band is one of the great Milwaukee music scene success stories of the post-pandemic era. Twenty-twenty-one’s BUGS found Jasmine Rosenblatt and Grayson Edward tinkering with chilled-out hyperpop; two years later, a full band (Rosenblatt, Edward, Elias Dorsey, Aidan Hoppens) delivered the masterful The Flying Toad Circus. Along the way, Bug Moment has played approximately 8,000 shows—including one at 4 Seasons Skate Park that was originally supposed to happen at Culver’s.

But all that feels like a warm-up for what Bug Moment has in store for 2025. Last month, the band released the soaring “Arbiter,” the first (and Halo-inspired) single from its upcoming EP. Now comes the fantastic “Purple Guy.” Like “Arbiter,” it’s a BIG song that mashes together emo, hyperpop, and good ol’ fashioned rock. It rules. Listen to it now:

You can catch Bug Moment live on Halloween—Thursday, October 31—outside Crossroads Collective on the East Side’s Ivanhoe Plaza at 6 p.m. Look for the band’s new EP sometime in February.

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Co-Founder and Editor

Matt Wild weighs between 140 and 145 pounds. He lives on Milwaukee's east side.