With cowboy swagger and strut in the verses and a gentleman’s loving embrace in the chorus, there is something raw and rugged to the sound that still manages to growl with a powerful passion even during the beautiful melodic harmonies of its gentler moments.
‘Meet Me In The Middle’ doesn’t waste any time at the start of the track, it dives right into it with fuzzy guitar twang, gritty lyricism, and midnight rough vocal chords. It introduces its unique sound beautifully, it has a scratched vinyl authenticity that feels like it has been dug out of the vault of yesteryears, but mixes it up with something monstrously modern and fresh.
The production is pitch perfect, every intricate layer of instrumentation shines through. The bubbling bass groove, the hazey gazey hum of the guitar, and the apple crunch crisp drums all mixed masterfully with the rich lead vocals. When the first chorus rolls in, which it doesn’t make you wait too long for, there is a rich tapestry of harmonies and ethereal orchestral layering that fills in the sound in such a way that it is truly breathtaking.
This is simple songwriting, no fanfare or pretense, and yet there is a heavy weighted bedrock poetry to the straight shooting lyricism that hits surprisingly hard. Picking out individual lines or phrases seems reductive because there are so many truly great quotes to choose from peppered throughout each of the verses. The chorus performs the same musical magic masterfully, a sleight of hand that only gets more impressive when you know the trick behind it.
“We don’t have to make it hard to fall in love, just meet me in the middle”, sounds like you have heard it before, but you haven’t, a cliche, but one freshly penned, not yet stale and near meaningless, still pulsing with the beating heart behind it. The three part harmony it is deployed with isn’t just lovely to listen to, but you can hear all three voices actually enjoying the singing of it, it just hits different.
Verses that growl with grit and gumption, a chorus that soars into the stratosphere on the wings of its sumptuous simplicity, and an instrumental section that shows of the masterful musicianship at its heart. There is no such thing as the perfectly crafted song, but Plastic Harpoons have got pretty darn close.
