Superstar Crush Go All In on Glitter, Guitars, and Growing Pains

LISTEN IN HERE: https://open.spotify.com/album/1imhKH25daBspuiyZf1qed

Hamilton, Ontario’s Superstar Crush aren’t interested in holding anything back. Their debut album Way Too Much bursts out of the gate with a sound that’s maximalist, emotionally charged, and unashamedly loud. Released alongside focus track “Do What U Wanna,” the record reads like a diary cracked wide open—twelve songs about oversharing, overthinking, falling too hard, and finding release in screaming it all out at the top of your lungs.

From the very first notes, it’s clear that Way Too Much thrives on contradictions: crunchy guitars meet glittering synths, bratty vocals cut through tender lyrics, and anthemic choruses are balanced with moments of vulnerability. It’s confetti and catharsis all at once—the sound of being young, messy, and desperate to make sense of it all with your best friends by your side.

Across the tracklist, Superstar Crush channel the rollercoaster of growing up into songs that are as chaotic as they are catchy. One moment they’re delivering tongue-in-cheek bravado, the next they’re baring raw honesty. Anxiety, heartbreak, joy, anger, longing—it’s all here, sometimes within the same song. The album becomes less a collection of tracks than a living document of feelings too big for a group chat, too overwhelming to keep bottled inside.

At the center of it all sits “Do What U Wanna,” a swaggering, groove-heavy pop-rock single that distills the band’s ethos in just over two minutes: fun, heartfelt, and maybe a little unhinged. It’s a song about jealousy, delusion, and clawing back confidence in the face of rejection, and it didn’t arrive without its own drama. “It was my crippling jealousy,” admits guitarist Sam Hansell. “Our drummer Truaxe wrote our fan-favourite ‘Tru Blu’ and I was SO jealous of the success. I rushed home and cranked this little piggy out.”

That sense of immediacy pulses through the track, from its bass-driven verses to its cathartic, arms-in-the-air final chorus. For vocalist Marzieh Darling, its energy was undeniable from the start. “It’s a hype-up jam,” she says. “It just works. Girls started messaging me to say it was their go-to shower song, which is when I knew we had something.”

But Superstar Crush couldn’t resist adding their own twist of chaos. “There’s a tiger roar in there,” laughs synth player Chloe Butler-Stubbs. “Truaxe snuck it in while recording and we didn’t catch it until mixing – we kept it right to the end.” The playful detail says everything about the band’s approach: not too serious, but never insincere.

While “Do What U Wanna” might be the loudest, most defiant moment on Way Too Much, the record refuses to stay locked into one lane. Superstar Crush bend and break genre boundaries as easily as they swap inside jokes, careening from punk grit to bedroom pop intimacy, bossa nova flourishes, and dancefloor-ready indie grooves. The constant thread is a sense of heart and play, capturing a group of friends documenting their lives in real time.

That DIY energy is baked into the record’s DNA. Songs were written and recorded everywhere from bedrooms to classrooms to studio sessions with Tyler Kyte of Dwayne Gretzky, layering polish on top of unfiltered emotion. The result is an album that feels both timelessly anthemic and distinctly tied to the messy, hyperreal world the band lives in.

“We wanted to make something accessible, fun, but still meaningful,” says Butler-Stubbs. “We were missing lyrics that really felt like our lives in our scene.”

It’s a mission statement that resonates throughout Way Too Much. Superstar Crush pull from a wide range of influences—Pulp’s literate swagger, Jungle’s groove-driven sheen, the urgency of early Arcade Fire—without ever sounding derivative. Instead, they fuse those reference points into something that feels entirely their own: dramatic but playful, deeply relatable yet larger than life.

In the end, Way Too Much is both a love letter and a rebellion. It’s an album that says everything all at once, with no regard for being “too much”—because that’s the whole point. Superstar Crush aren’t trying to tone it down. They’re leaning in, going louder, messier, and truer to themselves. And in doing so, they’ve crafted a debut that feels like a rallying cry for anyone who’s ever felt too emotional, too intense, or just too much.

SUPERSTAR CRUSH TOUR DATES:

August 21th, Poacher’s Arms, London, Ontario

August 31st, Gryphfest, Guelph, Ontario

September 19th, Convergence Fest, Oshawa