From the outlet moments of bitknot, it’s obtrusive that Feeble Little Horse has discovered a wholly new equipment. The place on Lady with Fish the blown-out textures had been extra ’90s indie rock and shoegaze, on their newest LP, there’s a extra trendy edge to the distortion and the riffs reduce cleaner. In a similar way, the place the virtual glitchiness was once most commonly relegated to window dressing on their sophomore document, on bitknot it’s integral to the preparations and a core a part of their rising, distinct sound.
We were given a preview of this new course at the one-off unmarried, and one in every of my favourite songs of 2025, “This Is Actual.” It mixed blast beats, Sonic Formative years-esque guitar melodies, pitch-shifted vocals, and glitchy samples. It even in brief we could the metronome click on bleed into the monitor. It’s a three-minute chaotic excursion de drive that must be heard.
Bitknot reins within the scatterbrained inclinations and turns the thesis of “This Is Actual” into one thing extra approachable and sustainable over the period of a 25-minute LP. The opener, “Doorway,” begins with a wail of comments and a pummeling collection of guitar stabs sooner than settling right into a melodic microloop of synths and vocals over a programmed drumbeat. It drifts again to the large drum hits and fuzzy guitars for the refrain, regularly including components sooner than collapsing into an outro of beat repeats and vocal stutters. It’s extra “restrained hyperpop” than “maximalist indie rock” through the tip.
“Rewind” relishes in its tacky synths. It’s faculty rock guitar and aloof guitars seamlessly married to fowl recordings, a synth koto patch, and meowing melodies. “Shady” pairs low-quality MP3 guitars with a drum loop that sounds ripped from a 1998 factor of Laptop Tune Mag. “Dior” even brings again the clicking monitor gimmick from “This Is Actual” for its outro.
If “This Is Actual” was once attempting on a splashy new outfit on the retailer, bitknot is studying to include a few of that outfit’s flamboyant components into your day-to-day cloth wardrobe and make it yours.
It by no means reaches the absurd giddy highs of closing yr’s unmarried, however it’s a greater show off for Lydia Slocum’s songwriting. The lyrics veer from candy on “Cradle” (“I’ll draw our child’s face / Give it your closing title”), to bitterly disaffected (“That butterfly was once my mistake / An analog of one thing faux / A metaphor I couldn’t shake”) on “Upside Down.” Slocum’s even were given jokes on “Dior” (“He hit my line and mentioned he needs to understand his possibilities / Can’t inform a lie, I instructed him, ‘Slender like my Virginias’”).
The again bite of the document totally embraces the band’s new virtual aesthetic. “Upside Down” is the nearest to the uncooked glitchiness of hyperpop, “Guts” includes a chopped-up vocal as a lead melodic device, and “Buying groceries” has a siren-like loping lead guitar and is bathed in refined low-bit noise. The nearer, “DMT,” explodes out of the audio system with a bath of virtual flickers and a riff that appears like any person enjoying a guitar strung with rebar.
The Feeble Little Horse on Lady with Fish with a really perfect band, however they felt like one thing of a throwback. On bitknot, they’ve turn out to be one thing extra, one thing particular.
Feeble Little Horse’s bitknot is to be had now on Bandcamp and maximum main streaming platforms, together with Qobuz, Deezer, Apple Tune, YouTube Tune, and Spotify.
