Unadorned and yet aggrandising, Margot mourn another lamentable loss on “In Your Palm” ahead of their EP release next year. Their trademark glistening guitars and chiming melodies have been replaced with a much more abundant and brooding sound that proves highly seductive.
On first inspection you’d have it down as a break-up song, with lyrics such as “what happened to us / broke in two / you turned away as problems grew”, but as with their previous singles, nothing is quite as it seems. Yet again they’ve excelled at deviating from the banal and weaving a far more complex and pertinent subject matter into their work.
“It’s about a teacher feeling that their job to teach is becoming untenable due to the outsourcing of schools to corporations driven solely by profit,” explains vocalist Alex Hannaway. “It’s about how people, hardworking people, people who love their jobs, have been let down by short sightedness, almost an arrogance, an expectation.
“I think this is beginning to be acknowledged now by the powers that be. And there are less teachers! I've heard first hand, watched and felt angry about this subject so I wrote about it."
And while the focus of their attention is admirable, it’s the rousing and escalating instrumentation in the second half of the track that shares centre stage. Throughout the track there’s a distinct sense of a tide caressing a shoreline with the subtle building and retracting of strings and keys, all underpinned by anchoring metronomic drums. Akin to the stirring of emotions and the quickening of a heartbeat; whirring guitars and full-bodied basslines coalesce and heighten to a soaring crescendo that both swells the heart and leaves you heartbroken.
The track is accompanied by an animated video directed by Jenny Wright, who won Best Animated Short at Tribeca Film Festival this year.
