Cutting My Fingers Off

There's a warmth to "Cutting My Fingers Off" that feels almost physiologically soothing — guitars tuned bright and clean, draped in just enough reverb to shimmer, the whole arrangement breathing with a looseness that suggests summer light through venetian blinds. Turnover in their "Peripheral Vision" era had completed a dramatic tonal shift away from their earlier post-hardcore roots toward something more indebted to dream pop and classic indie guitar music, and this song is among the fullest expressions of that transformation. Austin Getz's voice is disarmingly gentle: slightly nasal, earnest without affectation, the kind of vocal that sounds like someone talking to themselves and happening to be overheard. The melody has a melancholic sweetness that never tips into sentimentality — it describes something genuinely difficult (the slow self-harm of staying in something that isn't working, the compulsive return to a person or situation that costs you) but frames it in tones that feel almost nostalgic, already remembering the experience as it unfolds. The rhythm section keeps things grounded without drawing attention to itself. This is music for summer drives into nowhere specific, for relationships with complicated endings you're not quite ready to assign meaning to.