Heartbreaking Bravery

LVL UP are drawing closer to the release date of Hoodwink’d, an album that’s loaded with the band’s best material to date. To celebrate its impending release, and to tease just a little bit more of how insanely good this thing is, they’ve offered up another glimpse in the form of the rollicking outsider pop tune “I Feel Ok”. It’s a deceptively complex song that manages to underscore just how capable this band is of writing great songs to anyone willing to invest the time in deconstructing all of its individual elements.

There’s a feeling of ease and weightlessness to “I Feel Ok” that’s not uncommon for LVL UP but taken to new heights on this particular outing. From the song’s ornate percussive features to the twinkling guitar tones and floating vocal melody, it’s an outsider pop gem courtesy of a band that seems to have a ceaseless supply of them. “I Feel Okay” also stands out for stripping away a lot of the band’s gnarled fuzz (something they hit new heights with on “Soft Power“) without shedding any of LVL UP’s immediacy or innate charisma. Never over-reaching or overbearing, “I Feel Ok” is the sound of a band living up to increasingly heightened expectations with aplomb. What’s almost terrifying about the pairing of “Soft Power” and “I Feel Ok” is that between the two of them, they’ve barely scratched the surface of what LVL UP is capable of.

Listen to “I Feel Okay” below and make absolutely certain to pre-order Hoodwink’d from site favorites Double Double Whammy (a label run by two members of LVL UP) here.