The suppression of an emotion is often just as, if not more effective than a bleeding heart, especially in a song. Felix Walworth, the voice and drums of Told Slant, incorporates a subdued humility into a dire need to get something off his chest on new single, “Log Hymnal”, off the band’s forthcoming record Going By, out June 17 on Double Double Whammy. Patient, almost hesitant pickings of folky guitars start the track down an empty road of gloomy uncertainty. Every lyric is extracted like a bad tooth, a remedy necessary for healing, but audibly painful as all hell, inquiring to you, to the universe, “Why don’t you comfort me?” Guitar harmonics are plucked as though Walworth’s heartstrings are wound as tight and playable as a harp.
And suddenly, yet imperceptibly, something changes. As the track progresses to its close, the guitars, harmonics, the percussion and lyrical repetitions become steadier, growing in confidence and self-assurance (or at least self-reassurance), the message shifting to one of potential in Walworth’s life-view. “Felix, you can battering-ram this life,” he mumble-sings, impressing that it doesn’t have to be so defeating, and hopefully, achieving his catharsis.
