On their new record Girl with Fish, feeble little horse shed the drama and weight favored by traditional shoegaze acts like my bloody valentine and Slowdive in exchange for a more bouncy and youthful sound. Both approaches have their merits, but the young Pittsburgh band’s route of choice is fresh and unique when paired with their experimental glitches and feathery acoustic playing.

The hurried manner with which the songs chase each other throughout the record’s 26-minute runtime only adds to the group’s charm. In a genre like shoegaze that can be dominated by hazy six-minute soundscapes, feeble little horse never abandon conventional song structure, resulting in what boils down to a pop record for the more fuzz-trained ear.

A prominent example of the aforementioned acoustic-glitch crossover can be found in “Healing,” a song that promises to recline as a slower point in the record but instead is propelled by ambitious and rewarding beeps and boops.

It’s not the first time experimentation has been utilized over acoustic melodies, and while there’s no clear lineage of influence tracing back to Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Girl with Fish’s embrace of weird without departure from conventional pop writing makes it tough to ignore the similarities, however slight they may be.

Girl with Fish only gets stronger as it careens along, reaching a triumphant peak with penultimate track “Station,” a meandering journey with a sauntering instrumental middle section where all four musicians shine the brightest. It’s a moment of stripped-back beauty in a record that’s not afraid to erect walls of fuzz, making feeble little horse all the more appreciable in their versatility.

“Paces” is one of those songs whose melody burrows into a listener so quickly that there’s no other choice than to sit back and enjoy it. The hook’s attraction lies in a near inability to decipher what instrument it is that is reeling you in so effectively.

Girl with Fish is music that sounds as though it comes incredibly easily to the band, written in short bursts of creativity and met with such satisfaction that no member feels a need to revisit them. It’s music as spontaneity and it’s a pleasure as a listener to be able to hear a young band explore the limits of their songwriting and run with what they like.

Order Girl With Fish by Feeble Little Horse HERE