Just Like the Good Ol’ Days: Five Eight Offers Excellent, Energetic Reunion on “I’m Alone”

By “Tampa” Earl Burton

Single Review: Five Eight’s “I’m Alone” – Release date November 7, 2025

For the past year, the underrated Athens, Georgia, rock band Five Eight has been touring the States promoting the outstanding documentary Weirdo: The Story of Five Eight. In that time, the band looked back at their place in the history of Nineties alternative rock, when they were once held at the same level (at least in Athens) as R.E.M. and the B-52’s. It has also sparked some of those creative juices in Mike Mantione, the primary singer/songwriter for the band, enough so that Five Eight has returned with their first new music since 2017 in “I’m Alone.” “I’m Alone” starts with the intricate thoughts, almost the mental ping-pong, that Mantione was known for with his compositions for Five Eight in the Nineties. In this tune, Mantione balances the desire of many to embrace their loneliness with the need to interact with others. “Everything we do is to keep us away from the crushing sense of loneliness and meaninglessness,” Mantione said about writing “I’m Alone.” “For a second in the song, you’re driving away from everything you fill your life up with, and you’re left with just a postcard to communicate with.”

As Mantione discusses this with the listener, the band builds the song’s intensity. What was only a guitar and drums at the start builds to a crescendo of fierceness, for which Five Eight was very well known, albeit without the acclaim the band so richly deserved. By the end of “I’m Alone,” Five Eight reaches the aching climax, but does it get a resolution?

The song does not sound out of place in today’s alt-rock world and is an excellent expression of the Five Eight “style” right out of that Nineties period. Does this indicate that there could be another album coming, the first for Five Eight since 2017’s Songs for St. Jude? Fans of the band certainly hope so, and “I’m Alone” would be an excellent debut for such an effort.

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Weirdo: The Story of Five Eight

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Tampa Earl

“Tampa” Earl is a 40-year veteran of the entertainment industry, in particular rock radio and journalism. He currently has two radio shows, “Rockin’ in the USA” (focused on the history of rock) and “Crackin’ the Seal” (focused on new, independent, and unsigned artists and rock music) on Real Rock Radio, which broadcasts from Manchester, England. Earl, a former Marine, lives near Tampa, FL, where he is always on the lookout for the next great artist or band that will further the history of rock!

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