Ruston Kelly‘s voice floats over the melody. With a gentle, percussive heart beat, “Flavor of the Weak” feels raw and vulnerable. Off his new EP, Dirt Emo Vol. 2, the American Hi-fi reinvention lurches from Kelly’s inner being. He pulls in the reins and allows the emotion to pour fourth. “She’ll wash her hair / His dirty clothes are all he gives to her,” he observes, casting a gaze to a young woman, whom he loves from afar.
The chorus cuts right to the heart of the matter. “Her boyfriend, he don’t know anything about her
He’s too stoned, Nintendo,” sings Kelly, dissecting her entire life from the window. “I wish that I could make her see she’s just the flavor of the weak.” Kelly washes the listener in muddy, sorrowful water. The melody is tangy sweet, both mournful and desperate.
The song “may be the quintessence of my belief that pop punk/emo songs are just new age/angsty folk tunes,” he says. “So ping pongy in its catchiness, and so simple melodically and thematically. Like something that could easily be passed on by campfire, or like walking in Kenwood Mall with your friends after school. I used to listen to this song when I had a crush on a girl in high school, and she was dating like the sh**tiest dudes ever.”
Listen to “Flavor of the Weak” below.
Photo by Alexa King
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