California hook-smiths Max and the Moon have released a second single from their forthcoming EP. Harps is out today, and as with previous release Modern Love it’s a finely crafted and high quality slice of indie pop/rock with just the right mix of sonic elements. Each verse smoothly leads you into the tantalizing ecstasy and agony of the chorus, where the lyric carries you between the twin forces of pain and pleasure: in no time you’ll have yourself a catchy new earworm.

And, as with Modern Love, they’ve provided a quote that I could clumsily paraphrase or just serve neat. I choose the latter:

Harps is about the duality of trying to attain something or someone that has always felt unattainable. Whether it be a goal, a friendship, or a romantic relationship, people tend to put things on a pedestal in their lives and assume they themselves are infallible.

We are deeply affected when we become consumed by our obsessions, or the things we chase after. Harps touches on what it feels like when those cat and mouse games we play leave us thinking we’ll get everything we ever wanted or imagined. But ultimately, we end up stuck in the most miserable state: longing for what we hoped it would be.

We wrote this song about how it feels to operate obsessively in a different reality than the source of attraction we began romanticizing about in the first place.