Los Angeles-based artist Beck Pete corrals her dualities on her new single “BITE DOWN,” which also arrives as the first preview of their forthcoming album Scared Of Everything, Part 2. The first half of their debut arrived last year and served as the culmination of the time she’s spent cutting her teeth across the city’s many venues. Garnering a reputation for the gripping incorporations of soul and gospel that inform her songs, oscillating between pop and rock with graceful and rapt fluidity.
“BITE DOWN” unfolds as a stirring reminder that profound strength and emotional clarity are not mutually exclusive and that the presence of such a duality doesn’t immediately mean the two negate one another. Whether perceived in our lives or within ourselves these seemingly contradictory elements —from beauty and heartbreak to masculine and feminine — aren’t always as incompatible as we might believe.
Pete imbues the song’s very melody with such sonic polarities as well. Layering her simmering and smokey vocals over a rousing surge of guitars and drums that lend her words an elastic buoyancy. Punctuating them as she dreams of floating effortlessly between the push and pull of these different sides of herself. “Maybe there’s a place for me somewhere in the middle baby,” she sings earnestly. “Maybe I could drift between a little bit of sane and crazy, been both lately, changes daily.”
“BITE DOWN” is a perfect distillation of Pete’s music — one that spotlights the singer/songwriter’s knack for melding a handful of genres into emotionally sizzling and hook-filled songs. Her latest reveals the heavier and somewhat bluesier rock overtones finding their way into her music. But the first half of her album Scared Of Everything, Part 1 overflows with an ebullient alt-pop elation, as on the soaring “Five Month Skin,” or pulling the heartstrings on slow-burn ballads like “4U.”
“I just hope to tell stories in a way that impacts people. ‘Genre’ will wax and wane with what serves that story best, but one thing will stay consistent — I want to create a safe space to feel,” Pete said of her music. “Please don’t confuse this with me always making you comfortable or not surprising you. I hope to remind you that feeling is not just a positive thing, but also an inherent part of truly being alive. I hope to make you feel that, specifically — alive.”
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Words: Steven Ward
Listen to “BITE DOWN” the new single from Beck Pete below!
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