Growing apart from someone you love can leave you feeling like a glacier—with problems seemingly small at first, but a mass of dread growing underneath that could capsize any relationship.

Much like Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” in the Rocky Balboa franchise, SŌK’s new single “Cling” is a fitting anthem that pulls no punches for such an unstable relationship.

SŌK is a Columbia-based, female-led progressive alternative rock band, and their latest single “Cling” will be available on all streaming platforms Friday, Dec.12.

Alexis Ploen, the band’s vocalist and a senior contemporary, urban and popular music and music business double major, kick-starts the song with poignant imagery of the narrator recollecting how their once sweet relationship has grown stale, matching ambient riffs from Nick Bilski, SŌK’s guitarist and senior contemporary, urban and popular music major.

“Honey drips from your lips / sweet nothings are all that it is / still I cling to your shaking body / I cling to what once was.”

“Cling” is hopeful only in its solidarity with the anguish of a love that has run its course while hearkening back to good times, with an emphasis on “used to.”

“Still I cling to your perfect image / I cling to all I’ve lost / I know the world is your nicotine and I can’t compete / no I’ll never be what you want.”

The keen lyrics and smooth, yet also raucous melody of “Cling” ebb and flow in harmony. The song’s swaying nature would match the pacing one might do in their own room weighing the consequences of staying in a toxic relationship.

The song looks back on fond memories and serves as a love knot growing tighter on the narrator’s anxieties of not being enough for the person they are with as the song ramps up in the chorus.

“I am no match for your cigarette / that slips through your fingers as I slip through the cracks / wrinkled mind / still I find my way to you but I’m falling behind.”

Although the emotional weight of “Cling” is mature in articulating the agony a toxic relationship can generate, the song has no real resolution.

This lack of a conclusion does not make the song incomplete, though. Rather, it further encapsulates how relationships do not exist in a vacuum or end like chapters in a book. The residual pain felt in a love that has lost its luster can be rekindled in finding someone who will light your fire as brilliantly as you light theirs.

“Cling” serves as a heavy-weighted blanket and a text from a friend letting you know you are not alone as you go through the motions of a relationship you no longer have to hold on to.