Tiberius was originally created as a solo project for Brendan Wright, before expanding to a rowdy Boston four-piece who specialise in the niche that Wright describes as “Farm Emo”. It is a label that suits the sound of new single, Felt, well.
Basking in the low slung stylings of slacker rock but with an anxious and damaged vocal, Felt sounds like a cross-over project between Death Cab For Cutie and Pavement. Loose drums skitter as layers of guitars gently howl, Wright’s vocals describing a moment of torture, wrestling with their own personal fear of being alone. Describing the song, Brendan says:
‘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.’
I appreciate the freewheeling and lackadaisical aesthetic on Felt, partly just because there has always been something enticing about the sound of a band operating in this way. It is like they are in slow motion, and letting things just happen, free jazz like. But the delivery also suits the subject matter here, of someone somewhat deliberately avoiding confronting what they are actually feeling.
Felt comes ahead of Tiberius’ forthcoming album, Troubadour, which is due via Audio Antihero on 14 November. Check it out below.