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Sometimes a song comes along that’s so crisp, crackling shudders in its festive tray. The opening guitar riff, off the debut single for Middle Kids, for some inexplicable reason, is of such wholesome stuff that you just want to cry. From joy, sadness and intrigue, all mixed into a visceral mess of relief.
It must be that such quality is rare, hasn’t been spotted for nigh on a hundred years or it strikes with a powerful and tight blow, the right chord in the recesses of our hungry musical hearts. Edge of Town is of the ilk that could do away every man his fanfare and bugle, and the old king would have alone this music weaving its way in and having its confident, fresh and reviving way within the court. All hail.
Middle Kids deliver debut single Edge of Town and the land of music doesn’t quite know what to do with itself. The subtleties of this track make it an offering we’ve needed for a long, long time.
It’s one of the most un-gaudy songs to have graced the land of sound. There’s nothing flash about it. No neon lights gyrating around the stage, no booties shaking their thang. In their stead there’s this measured, haunting, human reality that’s meandering throughout the track. In one breath it is both exquisitely beautiful and deeply sad. Not the wailing, gnashing of teeth kind of sad, nothing that overt or dominant but something wrapped in a subliminal truth that we can keep wracking our minds over, to try and comprehend.
The intricacy and beauty of this track is that it’ll make you stop and feel and think. And think deeply, because it’s not telling us that we’re super devo’d because you’ve been cut open and you keep, keep bleeding love. No dammit, there’s more respect in this song than that. It’s melancholy in partnership with working crap out nodding it’s head to just damn well living life as best you can.
Songs that allow us to be sad without equating the legitimacy of the emotional situation to how profusely and readily the tears flow are intelligent, needed and complex. Putting one foot in front of the other is complex. Living life, interacting with other humans, dealing with confusion, understanding the mess, it’s all complex and so we might as well all go to the edge of town. Journeys are not just useful in the school curriculum.
Hannah Joy’s voice is so real, so damn smooth, it seems to be this tangible force that is sound and touch, coming in effortlessly, with no showmanship, so close you can taste it. She will make synaesthesia – sensers of us all. The guitar riffs rattle and reverberate with such transparency it’s as if they’re in your hands, curtesy guitar tamer Tim Fitz and the drums are played by a soul (newcomer Harry Day) that understands that the beat itself has a soul.
This song is the early morning long board skate to the edge of town, with the mist curling up in its lazy ethereal dance. The air remaining unimpeded, undisturbed, with that kick to the face, there’s a fresh bite to it. We’re cruising onwards, nothing else is stirring, we’re commanding the roads, arms wide in reckless abandon. We may be rough around the edges but we are mighty kings.
Most of the trip is blissful curves and arcs, we take them wide and deep, but it’s for that particular spot we’re pounding the pavement, we turn the corner and there, stretching out like the way of the gods, the slow and gradual downward hill to Valhalla. At the edge of town there’s the cruisey, wind swept, deserted hill of our dreams. Edge of Town by Middle Kids is such a good ride. Pack your things, it’s time to be a nomad.
