Stream: Max and the Moon, ‘Harps’

Kevin Bronson on
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Less than a month after they waxed about “Modern Love,” L.A. indie-poppers Max and the Moon have returned with a new single teasing their forthcoming third EP. “Harps” seems like another Hype Machine-bound confection, this one with the chillwave-y feel of bands like locals Tapioca and the Flea and a Starburst chorus reminiscent of MGMT. “My hand / is hotter than it’s ever been,” John Velasquez sings, and he and bandmates Zachariah Weaver and Matt and Dillon Couchois could certainly say that about their current creative spurt, which elevated them into more sophisticated synth-pop territory. Does it feel different than in early 2012, when Max and the Moon emerged from Chino Hills with a decidedly more innocent air? Probably. “Harps,” the band says, is “about how it feels to operate obsessively in a different reality than the source of attraction we began romanticizing about in the first place.” Like paying inordinate amounts of attention to Hype Machine?

||| Stream: “Harps”

||| Previously: “Modern Love,” “All I Know,” “Out of My Head,” “Out of My Head” video