Angel Envy - “Forlorn Cactus”

Angel Envy is an “internet rock” band based out of Philadelphia. They began working in secret back in 2020, when COVID lockdown was still in full effect, but they used that time wisely to craft some glorious musical gems, one of which we are very pleased to reveal to you today.

“Forlorn Cactus” is an indie rocker of a jam that immediately catches the attention of the listener by delivering the lyrics straightaway. The vocals are emphasized by the soft chugging of a guitar and the melody itself is quite the earworm. It builds from here, with a brilliant layer of vocal harmonies and an additional guitar, but at the thirty-second mark, Angel Envy lets you know that they’ve brought a few distortion pedals as the song kicks in quite epically– complete with drums, bass, and keys. At this point, if you’re not bobbing your head and/or tapping your foot, you are truly dead inside.

As for subject matter, the song has an interesting take on the values of a relationship– one that we have yet to hear in a song and, for this, we graciously applaud them. Angel Envy claim that they “wrote a song about confiding in something other than your partner rather than dealing with relationship issues head-on.” The imagery is quite vivid and the lyrics alone let us know that they take their songwriting quite seriously, even though the song’s title was originally supposed to be temporary: “In actuality, the song started as the opening guitar riff in a demo project called “Forlorn Cactus” as a place-holder title. When we began to write lyrics, we joking left a line about a forlorn cactus and the words stuck.”

If you have not yet pressed the play button, we can assure you that this track is most excellent. And though the style is a bit outside of our usual rotation, we certainly hope that this is not the last we hear from Angel Envy.

-TM