Following a successful 2016 that saw streams of singles Statue and Row collectively rack up 3 million streams, Stockholm-based folk/pop duo Smith & Thell begin the year with the anthemic February.
Written after a creative dry spell when the weather was cold and dead, siphoning any bit of joy or light that filled them, the duo turned their melancholic feelings into a beautiful song about the uphill struggle we sometimes feel during these merciless months.
Smith & Thell explained the song in great detail:
We wrote this song in the month of February last year. It was a gray time in life and an even grayer winter in Stockholm. All we could see around us were hollow-eyed people on the subway walking into each other and stepping on each other’s feet, drowsy from too little sleep and too much darkness. We said ‘let’s just be honest with ourselves that life sucks for the moment.’ Victor sat down by the piano, I was laying on the couch and the words ‘I’m as low as low can be, I just go home and watch TV’ came out. Named after this gray and cold month, we wanted to embody the every day life faced here during this time. Sometimes you want a song to pick you up – but sometimes, at least for us, we just want to rest in our feelings and embrace the low’s for a while, before getting back “into the ring.”
Sometimes you’re strong enough to be your own hero, but sometimes you just want to exist, and simply feel whatever you feel. Hopefully “February” will allow you to simply… feel.
These sullen feelings are almost unnoticeable as February soars with a beautiful roar of gang vocals and handclaps while ripples of light beam through the cracks of wry smiles that try to steal a breath of life.
So hit play and follow Smith & Thell to stay updated on their Soulprints album, due this summer.