Pets, the ambitious new project from Jonathan and Nick Campolo (P.E., Pill), provides a grimly intimate look at hope with their latest single “Elevator.” It's found on the upcoming album"Spiral Question Mark," and it’s a clinic in emotional tension and muted gorgeousness.
Jonny Campolo casts “Elevator” as a song about the silent wrecking ball that is unreciprocated love, or, in his words, “being in love with waiting.” It’s a powerful metaphor. Here comes your floor, and the elevator doors haven’t opened yet, so you’re marinating in that as-yet-unfulfilled expectation. The song is full of vivid imagery, and it’s soaked throughout Agnes by delicate instrumentation that is buoyant and thrilling with an undercurrent of wistful yearning worthy of a film score.
“Elevator” is a slow, striking exhale. The dynamic between Jonathan and Nick’s overlapping vocals hints at shared reminiscence, something at once personal and universal. The lineup suggests some of their work with P.E. and Pill. Still, it makes a clear, confident modern statement for Pets, one that favors gentle openness without losing the shield of sophistication. The power of the song is its honesty. There’s no pretense, just the pack of feeling slapped with words, as Jonny describes. It’s melancholia you can sink into, even as it holds a quiet hope. There is beauty in the emotional truth, even of waiting.
“Elevator” is a reminder that music’s force can also be found in its moments of capturing something we’re unable to articulate ourselves, those interstitial pauses between floors where life, love, and memory meet. What pets do is not just tell a story but allow listeners to inhabit it.
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