feeble little horse are back with their first new music since the release of their acclaimed 2023 album, Girl With Fish. Their new single, “This is Real”, is a blur of sonic adaptation and aggregation, the band trying on various sonic outfits to see which fit and which they seem content to put back on the rack. Metal riffs, folkish plucks, and pop wanderings collide in a cauldron of musical one-upmanship. It’s a glorious racket and one that bodes well for their continued rhythmic experimentation.
“I think it’s important that this song is released to turn the page, but also to enjoy the product of sitting with something for a record breaking amount of time for us as a band,” says singer Lydia Slocum. “We wrote our past 2 albums with this indescribable urgency, and I think ‘This Is Real’ happened while the burner was turned to low if that makes sense. I wouldn’t say this track can function as a prophecy for what our sound will become for the next album, but it’s become something no other song will ever quite compare to. I seriously grew so much as a person from the beginning to end of the writing process, since the song started when we had to cancel our tour and finally finished just a few weeks ago. I hope this track can function as a time capsule for our fans the same way it has for us.”
Drummer Jake Kelley adds: “To me, the track is an album’s worth of ideas squished into three minutes, it’s the best out of all four of us so far.”
“My general hope when I first started piecing together ‘This is Real’,” says guitarist Ryan Walchonski, “was to create a song that felt like a collection of sketches, each subsequent section noticeably different from the last, but equally as exciting.”
Bassist Sebastian Kinsler explains: “This song began as a word salad of an Ableton project sent by Ryan – full of disconnected, amazing ideas. From there, it was on us to sculpt shit out, rerecord, rearrange, and mold this song into what it is now. Transitions gained cohesion, melodies got catchier, lyrics gained depth…then Jake brought in the double kick and it was OVER. We couldn’t be more proud of the end result… just have no idea how we’ll be able to play this live.”
Listen below and check out the band’s upcoming UK/EU tour dates.
Tour Dates:
6/06 – Barcelona, ES @ Primavera
6/08 – Paris, FR @ Point Ephemere
6/09 – Amsterdam, NL @ Bitterzoet
6/11 – Dublin, IE @ Whelan’s
6/12 – London, UK @ The Garage
6/13 – London, UK @ OUTBREAK
6/14 – Manchester, UK @ OUTBREAK
“This is Real” is out now on Saddle Creek. You can follow the band on Facebook and Instagram.
