Take My Warmth Away

Goat Girl “Anxiety Feels”

“Anxiety Feels” addresses panic attacks and feeling ambivalent about taking medication for anxiety, but doesn’t sound anxious at all. It feels more like a medicated state – a gentle, slightly sterile groove and vocals that convey a rational mindset at a distance from more urgent emotions. The arrangement is crisp and clean and neatly detailed, but it’s not cold. There’s a hint of melancholy in the lead guitar and the half-sigh of the vocals, but it’s muted. Or maybe it’s more like dilution – the tone is like the lightest shades of watercolor on the furthest edge of a more saturated hue. The strongest feeling in the song comes through in a wistful refrain – “I find it hard sometimes” – but even that seems a bit hazy and detached, which makes me wonder if the song is more about imagining the medicated state than depicting a lived experience of it.

Buy it from Bandcamp.