FEEBLE LITTLE HORSE RELEASES “GIRL WITH FISH’
In a world where music seems to be at a crossroads between live instrumentation and electronica, this Pittsburgh noise-pop group’s sophomore album proves to be a surprising and pleasant mix of both that provides a much-needed spark in the shoegaze genre. Girl With Fish manages to perfectly encapsulate the gazy dreaminess associated with the genre while also wonderfully toppling a major conflict that often comes with this kind of sound: Keeping you interested.
The opening track, “Freak”, features fast-paced heavily distorted guitars over vocalist Lydia Slocum’s laid-back yet melancholic and layered melodies that compliment the fuzzy instrumentals setting the exact tone for the rest of the tracklist. Her voice throughout the album sounds like a dissonant Beach Bunny that’s so over your bullshit with Faye Webster's twang, creating this beautiful contrast. Jake Kelley’s percussion blends perfectly into the harshness which makes the songs feel so full and transformative. The group creates these perfectly timed breaks that turn each drop into an explosion. The production is experimental and playful leaving you finding new sound effects and details with each listen.
“Tin Man”, the album’s first single, is a diss track for manipulative men everywhere. Slocum’s overdubbed and disconnected vocals create this sharpness that along with Kelley’s metallic and clanky drums encapsulates the song's title well. This song features lots of the aforementioned hidden details which doesn’t let a single second of the runtime go to waste. The blend of noise and twang is a great and ambitious combination that lets each part shine brighter than it would on its own.
The third track and second single, “Steamroller” explores the stigma, guilt, and anger that can come with having sex, with lines like “Steamroller, you fuck like you’re eating”, “Wet bed sheets she Bled from the pressure/ Plastic catholic priest watched from the dresser”, and “I can’t carry the weight of feeling stained”. Slocum’s vocals are haunting and you can hear the pain in her voice. The guitars are scratchy, electrifying, continuously rising, and develop this slowly changing melody that is both adrenaline-inducing and tear-wrenching.
“Heaven” is a switch-up to the previous track's noise and pace. It’s a slow and sweet wish for your presence to make a difference. After Slocum defeatingly sings “So I’ll sleep and go to Heaven”, the song devolves into a contrasting glitchy mess as if the narrator has given up completely.
The group switches it up again with “Paces”. At first, sounding like a happy indie rock song, but the guitars quickly become grainy, pitched, and chopped making it feel bittersweet like it’s the summer before you first go off to college and you’re trying to savor the time and be optimistic about the future, but you know your friends are leaving you and starting new lives.
“Sweet” sounds heavily My Bloody Valentine and Deftones inspired along with a melody that sounds Arabic inspired. Slocum and guitarist Sebastian Kinsler alternate lines in the chorus as they sing about wanting someone you know you shouldn’t and rejecting the parts of them that became a part of you. The guitar riffs also alternate from being heavy, distorted, and drowning to a rapidly changing indie back and forth.
My favorite track on the album, “Slide” was originally written by and for guitarist Ryan Walchonski, but his bandmates loved it so much that they convinced him to turn it into a feeble little horse song. The song starts with a quiet and plucky acoustic backing and an electropop synthesizer before a sudden explosion into a loud wall of distortion and rocky chorus as the instrumental cuts out and Slocum pleads “Did I make it worse trying to sympathize?” before exploding once again. There is a definite Jockstrap influence here. This song showcases the group's mastery over addictive lead melodies and carefree acoustic guitar passages as well as their ability to transition between the two, giving you goosebumps and slapping you in the face to make sure you’re listening.
The song “Pocket” starts sweet and playful as Slocum sings “Do I make you cringe?” and “Do you wanna be in my pocket” over a twangy and bright melody. The song gets increasingly more noisy and rough and before you know it every part of the song is layering over itself as the song builds and builds until it cuts out and goes quiet. At this point, all the anger building up throughout the album in the lyrics as Slocum seemingly stayed relaxed reaches its boiling point. The fuse finally burns out as Slocum begins to scream and let it all out before the song suddenly ends.
With a 26-minute and 6-second runtime, the group made sure to fill every pocket of space with something interesting and to keep you staring in awe as their sounds makes everything else fade away. This album is both playful and heart-breaking and feels like a genuine journey inside the minds of each member as they make the music they want to make. The creativity and meticulous crafting of each song is extremely apparent and blows my mind. feeble little horse made the album they needed to make at the perfect time. This is a must-listen and one of the best albums of 2023 so far. I’m terribly excited to see where the future of the group takes them.