Listen: Truth Club - "It's Time"

With the collapse of the time-space continuum that was the covid-19 pandemic, it's hard to imagine it's been almost 4 years since the release of Raleigh quartet Truth Club's debut album Not An Exit. Since discovering them at my first ever Hopscotch Music Festival back in 2017, a highlight of each return trip was the chance to see Truth Club since heretofore they hadn't really been a touring band. And yet, despite the fact that up until 2019, I'd have one or two performances a year to tide me over, there songs remained so distinctly memorable that I never really lost any enthusiasm for them. Going on tour with Wednesday last year, the band unveiled a series of new song clearly prepped for a follow up to their 2019 debut. "It's Time" is one such song and it's a scorcher - building a solid base of driving drums and angular guitars before Travis Harrington's vocals enter. 

One of Truth Club's many strengths is the interconnectedness of its members and the song spends a good portion of time setting that up before. While lyricism in Truth Club's songs are always at the forefront and certain phrases end up being incredibly memorable - I've personally found them both obfuscated and illuminating. It's an interesting dichotomy. Harrington's lyrically very open and yet, plays with cadence and vocabulary in a way that has you second guessing.

 "I watch this one last busy week crestfall and dissolve the intentions you set and I will watch it happen again" is a lyric that shouldn't have nearly enough interpretations as it could and yet, it reveals a surprising amount of information for an opening lyrics. Essentially describing detached inaction that Harrington elevates to a gripping level of drama. "It's Time" is a descent - or more accurately, an re-enactment of a descent - as Harrington details shifting feelings that gradually metamorphose into something seismic. "When alone I'm afraid I will never find a way to pry joy from strain, joy is strain, joy is strange" Harrington announces at the song's climax. It's a major pronouncement - the feeling when you're at a low point that you can't see the way back up. Thankfully, the song ends on a somewhat hopeful if not productive note: to just keep working at it.Truth Club lyrics have a tendency to be self-referential - either to their NC environs or the member themselves (see: "Not An Exit"/"Tethering") and Harrington does so here - "It's a show of faith, always running, but in Yve's groove, she moves, she dreams up new ways to exhaust herself", Harrington delivers amidst a wash of dissonance with a sort of optimistic uncertainty.

 

Truth Club's newest single "It's Time" is out now. 

Listen: Truth Club - "Not An Exit"

photo by Logan Murray

My first encounter with Raleigh pop rockers Truth Club, then a trio but since expanding into a four piece, was in Neptunes on the 2nd night of Hopscotch Music Festival in 2017. I was instantly taken with the band's dynamic - churning around vocalist Travis Harrington with an energy both frenetic and breezy and ability to shift tempos and moods with an impressive amount of ease. It was the strength of that set alone that marked them as a band to watch in my mind even as they seemed relegated to being one of the Raleigh music scene's best kept secrets. With "Not An Exit, the first single from their upcoming debut full length of the same name, the band are making a splash on a much larger stage. 

Their first release since 2017's two song release Interest Meeting, "Not An Exit", with it's sightly off-kilter jangle, quickly establishes itself as an inescapable ear worm before guitarist Travis Harrington's vocals even enter. And when they do, they're a kind of unassuming half mumble that make it all the more effective when certain phrases leap out at you. Harrington is the kind of songwriter that doesn't assume everything he has to say is profound and with that freedom ends up creating some pretty stirring turns of phrase. "Not An Exit" essentially deals with the body as a prison. No matter how confidently you grew up or how normal or cool of a life you've lived, we've all had at least one of those moments that were so jarringly awkward that you've contemplated an escape from your own body; to wink out of existence. Harrington locks onto that in "Not An Exit" but also offers that regardless of how much you might want to escape its inescapable confines, the body is your home. While "Not An Exit" draws its inspiration from the anxiety of post-adolescent youth, it's charmingly mature even avoiding some cliched "it gets better" ending. No, Harrington's closing remarks: "There's not an exit from a form and there's never gonna be" is much more true to life while also striking an uplifting chord. You can't escape your body or its flaws but you can get more comfortable with them and hunker down for the long haul.   

Listen to "Not An Exit":

Truth Club's forthcoming debut full length album Not An Exit out May 3rd on Tiny Engines. You can pre-order the record now on digital or limited edition colored cassette.

Pitstop: Truth Club

I've always been strongly of the opinion that the true magic of a music festival lies not in the big name acts - the acts people know for a fact are good and enjoy but in the discovery of smaller acts that are perhaps far easier to miss. Hopscotch has made it both easier and harder to prove this assertion as they do a very good job booking so many interesting acts to so many interesting venues that you're torn between where you want to and where you should be. Raleigh's own Truth Club are a band I caught based purely on word of mouth from locals. When I asked everyone their plans for the penultimate day of Hopscotch everyone was sure to leave time in their schedules for Truth Club and I made sure to do the same.



The thing that intrigued me the most about the Raleigh trio lied mostly in the voice of singer/guitarist Travis Harrington. Among angular guitar melodies, surging tempos, and shifting dynamics, it's the one thing I found myself returning to and focusing on. Despite how many times you listen to any Truth Club song (and currently there aren't very many), you never quite get a sense of predictability from Harrington's vocal leaps. Truth Club sit at the intersection of pop punk and indie pop but never quite show their hand with where they're pulling influence in a particular song. Harrington's vocals are dynamic: whether their craning, or proceeding with a start-stop clip like a skipped stone they dictate essentially where the songs can go. That's not to say that the band aren't capable of truly intriguing instrumental moments: they are. Truth Club's song are made of an impressive assortment of these little memorable moments like the sudden cacophony in "Post-FOMO Life" or the drum hits that seem to punctuate the end of each of Harrington's thoughts on "Hi From C.A.". Despite their simple, standard setup, they play and write music with an air of maturity that's somewhat unexpected. Maybe that's due to past experience (Harrington was a member of Wilmington's Astro Cowboy) but one thing is clear: the band are sure to captivate from their very first note.



Truth Club's debut release Interest Meeting, released earlier this summer, is out now. You can grab it at a pay-what-you-want rate on Bandcamp.