feeble little horse - bitknot
Saddle Creek
Pittsburgh's feeble little horse(flh) turned heads with their sophomore album Girl With Fish in 2023. The sharp-shy aesthetic of the band emanated a cold-blooded, yet lovingly warm, energy into the Indie sphere. Three years on from their breakthrough record flh set out to capture that air once more.
Announced five days prior to release, flh put their third album out into the world. It caught me off guard - showing up on Spotify like a mirage to my mind. They would post an announcement video to their Instagram page featuring a mashup of the album's tracks. It would feature snippets of lyrics and their corresponding instrumental. Notably including:
'I think I dodged a bullet
Not going to Wednesday's show'
The band have stated that it's not a diss to Wednesday - one user commented "Wednesday catching strays" underneath their Instagram announcement post; the band replied with "nah".
"This Is Real", released in March 2025, would be the final single written alongside founding member Ryan Walchonski. Guitarist Sebastien Kinsler released an album under the Find My Friends moniker in May of 2025.
At 11 tracks and 25-minutes in length, and with the average track length at 2-minutes, bitknot is short and sweet. We figuratively step through "Doorway" to get inside of the gangly, fuzzy spheres of bitknot.
You'll get accustomed to these windy-upy electronics which make themselves known sporadically throughout the album. These forwards-reversed, waterfall chirp-like fluster bits which push-pull a tracks motion here and there - aesthetically speaking, feels-wise, they're quite cute and cuddly.
'Even from the start, it was poison
Ladder to the tree, I was chosen
Leaning on the part that was broken
Sucking on the fruit that was rotten'
Taking big steps in opposite directions, never to meet again. Further and further apart you grow. Never been closer to nowhere, closer to you.
The "Dior" riff is ever-so similar to Girl With Fish opener "Freak". Is it a part 2? A more chill appendage.
There is no "Steamroller" on here - no absolute banger per se. This feeble little horse has been tamed and toned down. It's a lot more aesthetically floaty; not as earthy and tied down to a particular sound - although moments of guttural punch are within. The sharp-shy idiosyncrasies that flh reside in are here, chock-full.
'The basement flooded again
Cradle on the porch
I'll sit here every day
It's our last resort'
Sounds reminiscent of a tired trumpeter embellish "Guts". A long day at work where your existence wasn't even noticed. Putting together the pieces and playing back what went wrong. You trot on as if to say 'fuck you all' to each and everyone - with style, and a rather large set of fingers. You're calm, and you don't deserve your time taken, anymore than it already has. However, the 'guts' to say it remains somewhere far off in the future.
"Shopping" is my favourite track on bitknot. The rhythmic rolls of the jackpot-like guitars/synths/what-have-you's have this triumphant feel, as if new neural pathways have been unlocked. A different view on current situations have been seen through. Things feel fresh and fruity.
"DMT" sees us out, as it sees us all out one way or another. The DMT Angel sprayed '333' all up in your shit and left you to look at it. Lydia Slocum's death screams maybe tell us that not all's well ends well.
bitknot can feel a bit creatively lacking at times. Like a feeble little horse lite. It's not as engaging as their previous projects, and I don't think it has to do with the subduing of sound. Don't get me wrong, I like the album, it's good, but it feels less tuned in; less wholly immersive in some way; a bit less off-the-cuff, and a bit more formulaic. The album can feel like it's over before it really gets going - moments of full satiation are few and far between.
