Losing a friend when you’re young can feel less like the end of a relationship and more like the end of the entire world. On ‘Apocalypse Queen’, Wormogenic refuses to minimise that feeling with the wisdom of hindsight, instead returning to the emotional intensity of girlhood and allowing it to be every bit as catastrophic as it once seemed.

The latest preview of her forthcoming Bandaids EP follows debut single ‘Rip Off The Bandaid’, but shifts the focus from self-sabotage towards the particular heartbreak of a friendship falling apart. Wrapped in grunge guitars, shimmering synths and melodic alternative pop, ‘Apocalypse Queen’ captures anger and vulnerability simultaneously, sounding appropriately enormous for emotions that once felt impossible to contain.

Its greatest strength comes from an unusual creative decision. The earliest version of the song was written while Wormogenic was in late middle school, and rather than rewriting those ideas through an older, supposedly wiser perspective, she preserves much of their youthful sincerity.

It’s an approach that could easily have felt naïve. Instead, it becomes the point.

Adult hindsight has a habit of reducing adolescent emotions to something trivial. ‘Apocalypse Queen’ pushes against that instinct, recognising that a friendship ending during those formative years can genuinely feel catastrophic. When your world is smaller, the people occupying it can seem infinitely larger.

That is particularly true of female friendship, which Wormogenic identifies as one of the central themes running through Bandaids. These relationships can shape identity, confidence and a developing understanding of belonging. When one suddenly disappears, you’re not simply grieving another person; sometimes you’re grieving the version of yourself that existed alongside them.

Musically, Wormogenic gives those feelings appropriately dramatic surroundings. Brooding passages create tension before guitars and synth textures expand into cathartic choruses, mirroring the way sadness can suddenly become anger and anger can collapse back into vulnerability. There is plenty of alternative-rock grit, but an instinct for pop melody keeps the track immediate rather than impenetrable.

The collision suits Wormogenic particularly well. Her sound pulls together the emotional directness of indie songwriting, flashes of retro-pop colour and a rougher grunge edge, resulting in something that can shimmer one moment and snarl the next.

Influences such as Chappell Roan, Caroline Polachek and girl in red provide useful coordinates for her willingness to combine pop accessibility with distinctive personality, but ‘Apocalypse Queen’ increasingly suggests an artist constructing her own emotional language. The defining characteristic isn’t a particular genre so much as her willingness to treat feelings that might appear embarrassing or excessive with complete sincerity.

That was already apparent on ‘Rip Off The Bandaid’. Together, the two singles suggest Bandaids will function almost like an emotional archive of adolescence, revisiting anxiety, self-sabotage, friendship and identity without sanitising them through adulthood.

Even the title ‘Apocalypse Queen’ captures that philosophy perfectly. It’s dramatic because adolescence is dramatic. Losing somebody important really can feel apocalyptic before experience teaches us that life continues afterwards. Wormogenic understands that acknowledging this isn’t melodrama; it’s emotional accuracy.

There is something cathartic about hearing those feelings presented without embarrassment. Rather than laughing at her younger self or correcting what she once believed, Wormogenic gives that version of herself the microphone.

‘Apocalypse Queen’ turns the collapse of a childhood friendship into the catastrophe it once genuinely felt like. Explosive, melodic and refreshingly sincere, it’s another compelling glimpse into Bandaids and a reminder that growing up doesn’t make our younger emotions less real. Sometimes the end of the world is simply losing the person you thought would always be there.