Petal | photo by Katie Krulock | courtesy of the artist
Petal battles despair in the new slow-burner “Tightrope”
Scranton’s Kiley Lotz is releasing her second long-player under the Petal moniker, Magic Gone, on June 15th via Run For Cover Records. After announcing the album with the lively “Better than You” video, a riff-rocker that tackles self-doubt, Lotz slows things down on the latest single, tackling a deeper sort of despair in the slow burner “Tightrope.”
Though the song is bright and melodic in its mid-tempo slow-burn vibe (the kind Lotz has done expertly in the past with songs like “Heaven”), the lyrics here are more overtly bleak — “I wished the truck on the overpass would / Tumble down upon me. / The truth is just a piece of coal dressed as gold.” Unlike the previous teaser from Magic Gone, there’s no undercurrent of hope this time, but that’s true to life, in a way. Some days are just struggles without reward.
Lotz does seem to be a firm believer in the idea of a bigger-picture silver lining, so we expect the tide will shift a bit over the course of Magic Gone‘s other tracks. In the meantime, the message on “Tightrope” seems to be that we will, more often than we’d like, encounter adversity. The best thing to do is muster our strength as best we can and power through.
Listen to “Tightrope” below, grab a pre-order of Magic Gone here, via Run For Cover. Petal plays PhilaMOCA on June 20th and 21st, co-headlining Home Outgrown’s sold out Camp Cope doubleheader.