On “Never Better,” released in advance of an album that suggests transformation, openness, and the spirit to start over, Night Teacher stakes the thoughtfully chosen line. The song, the first taste of Lilly Bechtel’s upcoming "Year of the Snake" record out on First City Artists, is part confession and part call to arms.
“Never Better” is the sound of transformation. Not the abrupt kind, but the sloughing type, the album’s title hints at the cyclical rebirth at the heart of the Chinese Zodiac’s Year of the Snake. The voice and pen behind Night Teacher, Bechtel, embraces that metaphor as a kind of intimacy that’s devastatingly relatable. Her delivery is gentle yet emphatic, her lyrics offering wound and wheel alike, the sting of endings but the muted thrill of beginnings.
The production is wide open, her words are left room to settle without a push. There’s a feeling of openness in the arrangement, an equilibrium between indie reserve and emotional largesse. Every note feels deliberate, every pause a reminder that growth is painful more often than not. This is not a song competing for a hook with volume or spectacle, this is, rather, one earning one through honesty.
Bechtel has said that she intends for the project to speak to listeners at all points of change of all kinds. That promise is kept with “Never Better.” The song doesn’t minimize the pain of transition, nor does it race toward resolution. Instead, it’s an invitation for the listener to make themselves at home in the in-between, where the old ways don’t quite fit, and the new ones aren’t quite settled. It is something of an invitation that is rare and perhaps precisely why it feels so necessary.