Orla Gartland’s new single, “The Hit,” does just this, grappling across the senses like a dead limb coming back to consciousness.
“The Hit” is the second taste of her recently revealed sophomore album, Everybody Needs a Hero, but it has the sharp wit and fizzing energy that sparked Gartland into a scene-stealing force. It pulses forward, urgent but effortless, like a thought finally released from a Cat’s cradle or a day that suddenly has found the lightness in its step.
There’s an inescapable sense of momentum to “The Hit,” a sonic exhalation of dead weight. With her unique blend of observant lyricism and intoxicating melodies, Gartland feeds us a track that doesn’t merely play. It sends us flying. It’s the kind of track that helps to transform the banal into the cinematic, the soundtrack to late-night epiphanies and early-morning realizations.
With Everybody Needs a Hero on the Way, “The Hit” confirms that Orla Gartland is moving. If it is any indication, her next chapter will be as fearless, sharp, and irresistibly infectious as we hoped.