by Jonah Evans (@jonahinthesnow)
Allston band Tiberius is out with their second single “Felt” from their upcoming album Troubadour. “Felt” follows “Sag,” taking a step back from the latter song’s palpitating escalation. It’s easy to hear the expression of fatigue and loneliness in Brendan Wright’s voice when they sing in “Felt.” The melody of their voice is pulled back, and sober and guides the honesty of raw emotions that the band can exemplify. The guitars come in and out, sometimes plucking, sometimes strumming calmly with short strums, and sometimes they wallow quietly. The drums play in a softer tone, with spares marching-like paradiddles. There is a slight twang that comes in and out of the guitars, as well as moments in the song, much like the rest of this album by the Farm Emo band. The cumbersome, self-reflective tone is palpable in this song, and it’s beautiful. This is also clear in the lyrics. Here are the last few lines:
“But as soon as driving home
It hit that I am still alone
I wouldn’t outgrow the pain of any single day
It sucks to be alive sometimes
But I’m living long enough to write it down
So I’ll have time to figure it out
But I feel the same now”
Tiberius creates a lot of tension and blooming sounds in their songs by genre-bending, mixing that twang with hard riffs, living in pockets of tiny country hooks that can bend to spacey or slightly harder tones. It’s a welcoming range of sounds to process a wide range of emotions. Speaking about the song, Wright shared:
“When I wrote ‘Felt,’ I was fairly fresh out of a breakup and was spending a lot of time looking for distractions. Instead of tackling some bigger questions and engaging in a healthy recovery, I was tucking away my feelings into compartments and distracting myself with casual dating. I was spending some late nights slipping into the backstories of strangers’ lives - exhilarating, but merely theatrical. It never eased the issue at hand. I was alone, and I was terrified to sit with that.“ – Brendan Wright