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The five-piece Montana folk band Laney Lou and the Bird Dogs are gearing up to release their forthcoming sophomore studio album Through the Smoke.
In advance of its arrival, they band shared another new song. 'Feed the Beast' is premiering exclusively with Holler. Listen below.
The slow-churning song details a disturbing duality in a partner that threatens to undo a relationship. "Sweet as a peach but spoiled inside", lead singer Lena (Laney) Schiffe sings against the opening strums of a sparse acoustic guitar. All it takes is one glass of whiskey too many to flip the switch.
"'Feed the Beast' tells the tale of power dynamics in a relationship, and the two-sided behavior that you can find in one person", Schiffe told Holler.
The song took some time to write as the band struggled to capture the scene in a way that did it justice. "This song went on a three year journey of being written", Schiffe said. "It’s a complex situation to put into only a few verses, and it was re-written multiple times before landing on the final version".
'Feed the Beast' builds into an emotional howl that crests with fiddler Brian Kassay's moving solo - and segues into a howl of a different kind. The band begins singing the word "howl" in powerful unison.
That turned out to be a memorable moment for Schiffe. "My favorite part of this writing process was when we came up with the epic 'howls' at the end", she said. "It added a visceral feeling to the song that influenced how the rest of the song played out".
After recording and releasing two live albums, Laney Lou and the Bird Dogs released their debut studio album, Sweet Little Lies, in 2019. Through the Smoke examines darker fare, but there's a resilience charging through the project. The album is out July 30.
