For General Admission: Music Journalism and Other Writing by Owen Neaman

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Since the fuzz ecstatica of “Freak” got picked up by the TikTok algorithm, one small step for the Pittsburgh band Feeble Little Horse proved one soaring gallop against the grain of today’s noise pop music. Unlike many modern shoegaze songs, “Freak”’s lyrics are not only intelligible, but singable. While the song wasn’t significantly stronger than the rest of 2023’s ethereal Girl With Fish, it undoubtedly gained the most attention. Since its release I’ve seen four different bands cover “Freak,” and seen several dorm rooms sing the song in full when it pops up in a queue.

The band’s digital guitar noise had nestled into a mold of the loud-quiet-loud structure abused by many a Grunge band, and even had a similar rhythm to the “Teen Spirit” guitar riff. And no, “Freak” didn’t have the impact on the face of rock that Nirvana’s song had, but it too became Feeble Little Horse’s pop song. After years of honing their sound, it had settled into a mold that yielded a diamond. And in the tradition of many great independent bands, Feeble Little Horse’s next release deliberately flipped off anyone who expected them to reuse their formula.

The band’s standalone single “This Is Real” (2025) starts as a standard song for the band, but abruptly seizes into an electronica freakout of blastbeats and screaming, synth melodies that could come out of a SmartVape, and fuzz that finally sounds prickly instead of just fuzzy. Everything about the song contradicted what Feeble Little Horse seemed to be, but as the title insists, this is now what Feeble Little Horse is, unmistakably and irreversibly. The band’s new record, bitknot, is their first without founding member Ryan Wachonski, and is a band gleefully scribbling outside the lines as they expand their palate. The result is their strongest album to date.

“Doorway” effectively serves as bitknot’s overture. In ten seconds, the band reels the listener in with the rapid bursts of distorted guitar and cymbals, before cutting quiet and tossing in hushed drum loops in their place. The Girl With Fish guitar blare is gone, and Lydia Slocum’s relaxed vocal melodies are far more pronounced. Lyrics like “Are you heavy?/Rope is waiting” are sung matter-of-factly and warmly, and Slocum’s vulnerability seems more apparent than ever. As the song progresses, the band plays with interweaving sparkly keyboard and drum loops, and it seems as if Sweet Trip leisurely strolled into this album. “Doorway”’s closing 20 seconds are entirely glitchy samples and 16-bit drums. In between the intro and outro seems to be the medium the band play with for the rest of the album.

That’s not to say that the old Feeble Little Horse is absent from this record: The crisp acoustic strumming of “Poison” wouldn’t be out of place on the band’s first album, and the live sound of Jake Kelley’s drums remains from Girl With Fish. The band makes clear that these elements are just a new tool, and they’re used sparingly on the guitar-driven songs. Still, their utilization feels completely natural: the whistling synth lead on “Poison” evokes PlayStation soundtracks that can’t be properly conjured by guitars. As Slocum describes sucking on the rotten fruit from a tree and asking “will I go forever and ever in debt, ” it’s tempting to hear it as a lament for PlayStation children who are now learning what a mortgage is.

Slocum’s lyrics show new cynicism;  the sweet vocals on “Rewind” and “Shady” spoonfeed mouthfuls of resentment. She knows the band is being watched when she sings “I tailored this bit for you to read.” Some of the samples and sound effects sound a bit saccharine (the high pitched “bumbumbum”s of “Rewind” are cutesy to the point of grating) but it feels custom for a band exploring new territory in electronica. 

“Dior” continues th—hold on, is that not the “Freak” guitar riff? For a second, you’re fully convinced that the band have written a rhythmically and tonally identical twin to their old hit, only covering it up with some keyboard embellishments. In the middle of a record where Feeble Little Horse are trying to break new ground, “Dior” initially sounds like a cop-out, but it’s the greatest hat-trick the band have ever pulled. When the drum fill hits and you expect the band to lunge for their overdrive pedals, the drums rein in and the wave of distortion doesn’t come. As Slocum eyerolls through lyrical gems like “This is my favorite song/But I don’t know the ending/I’m not insured/But nothing hurts wearing Ben Doctor,” the band blowtorch the TikTok caricature of their sound after baiting the listener in. It accelerates into a full-on dance track with Slocum poppily singing about an ex and their new lover (whose name is naturally redacted in the sea of beeps and boops) at a Wednesday show. Sigh. When she sings “You are not David Berman/You are not Kurt Cobain,” she’s singing about Feeble Little Horse as much as she’s singing about men who want to be the next tortured indie  martyr. “Dior” is a “Freak” clone gone wrong, Slocum pulls the same trick Cobain pulled with “Rape Me,” packaging a tirade against exploitation atop a riff that’s a dead ringer for the band’s biggest hit. Not only does it sound amazing, but it might be the exact moment Feeble Little Horse shed the skin of being a TikTok trend. The cherry on top is the segue into the electronic “Paris” interlude, the absence of guitars is loud and refreshing.

The second half of the album seems to be a continuation of the “Dior” metamorphosis with the slow pendulum swing of “Cradle” and hazy electropop hooks of “Upside Down,” with melodies taking cues from Chanel Beads’ dreamier songs. “Cradle” recalls 2021 fan favorite “Picture” inflected with the ambient electronica of a james k song. The druggy waltz of “Guts” chirps “Can you taste Ohio?” and you wonder if the album has become a soundtrack to the internet-rot of today. Ironic or not, it’s the band’s most explicit acknowledgement of consumer culture and microtrends that decide what’s fashionable. “Shopping” continues with this theme, with the endlessly catchy refrain “And would you fuck with these shoes/I wanna look just like you.” The song’s warbling samples and repetitive vocal melodies owe some credit to Philly shoegazers They Are Gutting a Body of Water, but are well-suited for Feeble Little Horse’s humid soundscape. 

Closer “DMT” (standing for death, money, tech, y’know, obviously) is the final nail in the coffin for the Feeble in the band’s name. By the end of the song, Slocum is screaming “Death, money, tech, DMT, check” as if screaming into a jet turbine. It certainly resolves the album thematically, but doesn’t match “Dior” or “Shopping” in terms of textural creativity or songwriting heft. Still, it’s a convincing ending to an album that breaks exciting new ground for this shoegaze band, if they’re OK with me calling them that.