feeble little horse - bitknot Review
A dizzying and deeply inventive record that finds feeble little horse tearing apart their own noise rock foundations in pursuit of something stranger, louder and unexpectedly pop-minded.
If feeble little horse’s existing body of work can be broadly defined as pop-curious noise rock, then bitknot is a rock-curious noise pop album. The Pittsburgh trio relent on the squalling blown-out riffs and thunderous drums that made up some of the most memorable moments across their first two LPs, pushing glitchy pop tendencies to the foreground to great effect.
One of the most truly experiential bands of the last decade, feeble little horse have been picking away at the constraints of being a “rock band” since they first formed one at university five years ago. In those early days, the band often spoke about making their songs “as weird as possible without destroying what makes them cool.” What they believed made them cool, it seems, is staying deeply-rooted in alt rock. Debut Hayday wears the influence of Wednesday and Alex G tastefully on its sleeve whilst the acclaimed follow-up Girl With Fish was a much more abrasive and experimental affair, but the language that it asked its questions in was still built on noisy guitar frameworks. Here, it feels like they embrace “destroying” the self-imposed guidelines of their previous work, finding joy in the deconstruction and rebuilding of structures.
Self-produced across the three members’ homes and their first effort since the departure of founding member Ryan Walchonski, bitknot is a knotty brainstorm that documents the band reimagining what their sound can be. Fans of Water From Your Eyes’ excellent It’s A Beautiful Place from last year will find plenty to love here, with the two records sharing a similar fondness for ornate intones over buoyant arrangements and structural left turns.
The hypnotic and woozy ‘Poison’ is an A-side highlight, putting forward the kind of immediate melody that feels like it has been around forever. ‘DMT’ the album’s closer, begins with familiar saccharine vocal delivery over contorted and abrasive electronics before Lydia Slowcum’s harrowed cries of “Death money tech / DMT check” bring the album to a shuddering close. In “Paris” and “Upside Down” they dial up the pop sensibilities further than they ever had before. On this record, it feels as though the band are pushing in as many different directions as they feel completed to, with the guiding principle being that most of it must be loud and every song needs at least one heavyweight hook. Released with just a few days notice with no single releases to telegraph their evolved sound, it’s a record that seems intent on disorientating.
There are just as many ideas here thematically too. Diaristic and cryptic forms compete throughout the record’s exploration of late stage capitalism, hyper individualism and technology. In much the same way as the sonic makeup of the record compels with its contradictions of texture, Lydia Slocum’s oscillations between the everyday and the surreal adds something really unique to the record. It’s a record obsessed with contradictions. “In a capitalist system, we are separated from where things originate. It's being American and being embarrassed of being American. It's being quietly conditioned and harvested, like walking mouths and wallets,” the band have said.
bitknot finds one of the defining experimental rock bands of the decade rewriting their own rulebook. The album houses some of their most pop-orientated work to date, whilst their oddball structures and sonic curiosity are still defining qualities.