Hopes Up

Where the previous track buries itself, this one reaches upward — tentatively, with one hand still covering its face. The guitar work is warmer here, strummed with something approaching hope before the production pulls it back into familiar murk. Synth pads drift underneath like unresolved feelings, neither resolved nor abandoned. Mulhollen's vocal performance shifts register in the chorus, opening just slightly — a fissure rather than a full break — communicating the vulnerability of someone who has decided to try again despite knowing the risk. The lyrical tension is between the desire to feel optimism and the learned instinct to protect yourself from disappointment; the song doesn't resolve this contradiction so much as sit inside it with honesty. Percussion stays restrained, giving the track a feeling of held breath. This is emo-indie at its most emotionally precise — not wallowing but mapping the exact geography between cynicism and longing. The cultural moment it belongs to is the era of artists like Cavetown and Rex Orange County, where sincerity stopped being ironic. You play this during the hours just before you decide to send the message you've been drafting for three days.