Elias Hix Is At His Best With “Paper Teeth”

Elias Hix has had an extraordinary beginning to his career in music. At only 18 years old, he’s built up a strong and authentic following after his song “Mud-Stained Dress” gained attention on TikTok. Written on the back of a worksheet he was given in Spanish class, the song caught the ears of over a million people on TikTok, and is currently sitting at just under a million streams on Spotify. But Hix followed up the single with the nine-sing album “Thinner,” proving he had far more to offer than just a hit single. Less than six months after the release of “Thinner,” Elias Hix is back with yet another exceptional display of indie-folk songwriting on the track “Paper Teeth.” 

The song reflects on his experience with insecurity and anxiety, recognizing how certain feelings are just figments of our imagination. Mental health is an important topic that he touches on a lot of his music, but it is executed in a way that isn’t too obvious or imposing. One of his strong suits as a writer is his ability to disguise relatable messages behind metaphors that paint vivid images of his surroundings. The chorus in “Paper Teeth” uses the analogy of a barn burning to represent insecurities preventing someone from growing. Spending his childhood on a cattle farm in Spartanburg, South Carolina, the use of such metaphors accurately reflects the memories he has growing up in the countryside. 

Writing, producing, mixing, and mastering all of his music himself, Hix is a more mature artist than his age suggests. “Paper Teeth” mixes acoustic guitars and banjos with Bon Iver-esque harmonies that compliment his honest songwriting beautifully. The warm textures perfectly capture the dense humidity of a South Carolina summer in which Hix wrote the song, and it is dropping just in time to land on all of your fall sweater weather playlists. 

Elias Hix is showing a lot of potential early on in his career, and with the release of “Paper Teeth,” you can already see the growth in his music and his songwriting. Listen to “Paper Teeth”  by Elias Hix, out now on all streaming platforms.