Adult Mom, the indie rock band founded and fronted by Stevie Knipe, has a new song out that is beautiful and devastating. Knipe received a breast cancer diagnosis in 2021, and she subsequently endured a brutal round of treatment that included a double mastectomy. Against an appropriately stark, acoustic background that recalls vintage Paul Westerberg at his most serious and reflective, Knipe sings about her experience with heart-rending specificity: “Every part of this becomes a new nightmare/ I lie flat on the table/ And make a joke about the clump of hair/ That falls out of my scalp.”

Painful as the song is, it also plays like a catharsis, like Knipe is freeing herself from the haunting memories. When she concludes with the lyric “But at the end of it I think I’ll be okay,” delivered as softly and somberly as all that have come before, it is a blessed relief, more triumphant than a fist-pumping moment in an anthemic arena rock song. This is the sound of survival.

Natural Causes, the new album from Adult Mom, is scheduled for release in May.