Not wasting much time after earlier this year capping their multi-part project (Eg) with their Earl St. Clair collaboration "torture," X Ambassadors returned Friday with their new single "My Own Monster."

The brooding track is out now via KIDinaKORNER/Interscope Records, produced by Andrew Wells, whose credits include work with Young the Giant and Halsey. It's a song about alienation, emotional risk and the desire to break free from pain.

“It’s a song about someone who has a voice inside their head,” says X Ambassadors frontman Sam Nelson Harris. “There’s something evil about the voice, but the person is attracted to that and ultimately decides, ‘I’m going to embrace this awful thing, let it be my best friend and let it protect me. What could possibly happen?’”

According to the band, X Ambassadors will be releasing their third album later this year, and this new song, with its haunting undercurrent, suggests new lyrical and musical territory.

Hear the new track below.