Review by Emily Shuey
It’s been two years since Two Feet’s last album, A Twenty Something F**ck, and it’s been well worth the wait for his most recent album, Pink . Two Feet’s Bill Dess has always been extremely transparent about his mental health with his fans and how it affects his creative process, and while he has taken a hiatus from releasing music, it has allowed him to create one of his most musically diverse and best albums yet.
I think one of the things that we all have in common as artists is that we create in order to process. Creativity can come and go like seasons, much like how the actual content itself evolves alongside us. Two Feet has been no exception to this rule, being very public about working on his mental health and how creating this album has been a cathartic process for him that he has willingly shared with fans.
{“It’s super beautiful when fans connect and share what they’re going through with me,” he says. “On a personal level, I directly respond to as many people as I can on social media, but I can’t reach all of them, of course. Writing music that can potentially be heard by everyone is another way for me to relate and maybe even help a little bit. Based on my experiences and how I’ve interacted with fans over the past year-and-a-half, there’s a lot more honesty in my songwriting than ever before.”}
The biggest transformation that we get to see on this album is Two Feet’s raw lyrical content. Most of his past music has been heavier on the acoustic side, and while songs like this still exist on the new album, he’s also opened up more creative space to a very sincere form of storytelling.
From the start of the album with “Intro”, Two Feet presents us with just over a minute of deep, building, and anticipatory lyric-less music that foreshadows the mood that the rest of the album will ride on. It evolves into a funky, melodic, and bluesy beat just before transitioning into the album’s hit single, “Pink”.
The song “Pink” tells us a reflective story indicative of Bill’s growth as he’s traveled through his twenties and his struggles with his mental health coming to a head with lyrics like “I think that I’m fallin, I’m trippin, and I’m crawlin…And I keep getting older, my mind is getting colder, the things that always matter, I know for sure won’t last”. He speaks to some of the struggles of coming of age as a 25 year old and the depression/anxieties that surround those experiences. Further diving into his lyrical content, Bill talks about his struggles of letting go of the old days stating, “All our stories went the same way when we had time to waste”. Making sense of the idea of how time seems more and more scarce the older we get is something that I think a large bit of his mid-twenties fan base can empathize with, if not all of us. The song then breaks into a cold and smooth chorus with a bass heavy guitar solo.
Aside from lyrical content, this album showcases how much Two Feet’s sound has grown and evolved (in multiple different directions). He’s known for his deep, dark, infectious bass heavy guitar riffs, which are still very much present, but are also accompanied by more upbeat and high energy, complex productions. This is most evident by the song “BBY” which is a major change to what he has released before. The song transitions from “Pink” into a sanguine and pulsating bass with underlying hip-hop beats laced with a more rock feel guitar solo. The song revolves around the lyrics “I think I gotta let go”, setting the stage for the creative rebirth that this album encapsulates.
Two Feet transitions into multiple completely different musical spaces throughout the album and as listeners, we can almost feel the roller coaster of emotions that the last few years of his life have been, both creatively and personally.
The song “I Can’t Relate” towards the end of the album comes as an extremely pleasant surprise. Bill comes at us with a calm, lush, acoustic song of how love, no matter how ecstatic, can come to an end. He then transitions into the end of the album with “We Will Be Alright”, a song about falling in love with lyrics like, “I want you by my side, I need you till the day I die”, with a delicate and honestly heartwarming guitar structure throughout.
Along with all this heavy lyrical content, Two Feet makes sure to throw in a complete banger like “I Felt Like Singing and Not Playing Guitar Pt. 2” and then tosses us “Maria” which is ultimately a drippy, melodic, late night anthem we didn’t even know we needed.
Overall, “Pink” is transparent. It’s energetic and complex. It’s fresh and experimental. It shows us more sides of Two Feet than we’ve seen before while giving us an intimate narrative into his creative journey over the last few years. This album echoes his continuous musical evolution and is indicative of the growth Two Feet is capable of.
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