Sometimes when things become too much, you're trapped, and it all just seems to be falling down around your ears - sometimes, somehow, amid all of that, you find the inner strength to say: you know what, to hell with it all. That's the feeling which Thyla manage to capture, masterfully, in their blast of a song, 'Everything'.
This is one of those tracks that showed up uninvited one day and burrowed its way firmly into my life, so much so that I now can't live without it. It features as the fourth and final track on Thyla's 2020 EP, 'Everything at Once' (not their latest offering - they released an incredible new single called Gum on 3 September which definitely should be on your playlist).
The fact I'm focusing on this one song here is no reflection on the rest of the EP. In my view, the record in its entirety is really good, and I absolutely recommend that you listen to it all (many timges preferably!). One reason is so that you hear Everything in its right place. I'm a big believer in context and good old-fashioned song curation - it brings a whole new dimension to music. I've embedded both the song and EP below.
As a song, Everything gets into a clear groove immediately, beginning with a 4-bar riff of chunky but slightly 80s-sounding guitars, soon embossed with firm, crisp drumming and then gentle vocals from singer Millie Duthie. These vocals don't stay gentle for long, but begin swelling gradually, with more emotion pouring in.
As the song progresses, a wall of sound starts building subtly up, with layer being spread on layer. Soon after the 1-minute mark there's an impressive and engagingly ambitious transition to raw emotion in the chorus section, which soars gorgeously, before a slight return to calmer waters in verse 2. But this time round, Millie can't keep it reigned in - she keeps breaking out in strident blasts of almost shouted vocals.
One thing I noticed in particular at the end of this verse is how the drums gradually descend into a crisper equalisation - sounding almost like a loop - before the song enters a new phase. I'm a sucker for little touches like these - those brilliant subtleties of production which you may not notice the first time around, but are there like gems modestly waiting to be discovered.
This song is a masterclass in the use of ebb and flow, loud and quiet, give and take, with several sections where things drop down only to build back up again.
The track finally bids farewell by way of drums only, with plenty of tom-tom, before crackling, a bit reluctantly, into obscure silence.
It's powerful and almost impossible to resist immediately playing all over again.
Thyla have announced a debut album for January 2022 - you can pre-order it here.