feeble little horse - Girl with Fish (2023) Hi Res

On the second album by Pittsburgh noise-pop band feeble little horse, singer Lydia Slocum is trying to figure out other people and herself but the answers are hard to tune into. And that ambiguity sounds great. Layers of hiss and static brilliantly stand in for confusion and frustration on songs like fuzzed-out opener "Freak," about an unrequited crush on a star college athlete ("How can you be satisfied/ She's 5'1" and you're 6'5"," Lydia Slocum sings, questioning the laws of attraction). "Steamroller" is dreamy shoegaze through a blown-out amp, at once a work of pretty melodies and guitar crunch from Sebastian Kinsler and Ryan Walchonski. "Steamroller/ You fuck like you're eating," Slocum sings like an indictment. "Throw in the towel/ I'm tired of baking." She has said it's about shame and her "most embarrassing song to sing." "Heaven" goes from pretty and sweet Slocum's vocals dropping down to a momentary whisper on "I sleep and go to heaven" before the whole thing warps and melts. "Sweet" combines My Bloody Valentine grandiosity and Wolf Alice power, with male-female vocals (both hushed, but Slocum taking on a more hypnotic role) offering sonic duality that's mirrored by the song completely dropping out, then blasting back to life. "Paces" is poppy and joyous, airy "Station" serves up slippery guitar squelch almost like a seagull's cry, and "Slide" ambles on a loose acoustic guitar jangle before enveloping the listener in a big hug of churning noise. The masterpiece here is "Pocket," a wild pastiche of styles, voices and emotion inspired by, Slocum has said, "being single and not knowing what to do with myself. I got in the habit of showing someone affection and I liked it but then that ended and I just had all these kisses and hugs burning a hole in my pocket!" That leads to a maddening loop of a nursery-rhyme chant: "Do you wanna be in my pocket?" which goes on and on before being stopped by static that sounds like a radio station being changed. Then there's a completely unexpected rap breakdown and round-robin layers of vocals, comparing the ghost of a past love to being like "a dead man is fucking me" until the station changes again, to a screamo version of "Do you wanna be in my pocket?!" And even when Slocum finds uneasy answers, she cynically tries to make the best of it. "I found you all rusted and leaky/ Took him apart and I found nobody/ But when I dent you, I end up bruised," she sings on "Tin Man" all brooding bass, blistering Sonic Youth guitar and a critique of victimhood. "Tin man hurts/ So I shine him clean."