“She’s one of the ones that got away / But would she take you back today / She’s one of the ones that got away / But is she lost to yesterday,” we’re informed in the new single “The One That Got Away” from The High Plains Drifters, these words forming a searing chorus that’s hard to shake once you’ve heard it for the first time. Emotions are running high here, but with a beat this strong to keep things in check, there’s little room for clunky grooves. The High Plains Drifters mean real business here, and they don’t mind flexing a bit just to show us they’re ahead of their competition at the moment.
There’s some amazing color to this master mix, especially on the bottom end. The bassline was one of the first instrumental elements that really struck me as being much stronger than it has to be in “The One That Got Away,” and while it’s a picture of indulgence to some listeners, it’s precisely the kind of buffer that The High Plains Drifters needed for this performance, in my opinion. They could have gone with something more synthetic, like a lot of their peers would have, but this look benefits their organic profile more.
Lyric videos have never been particularly elaborate affairs, and while this is much the same for the piece created for “The One That Got Away,” I will say that the urban feel to every frame undisputedly enhances some of the harmonies already present in the mix. It’s not the black and white simplicity that I’ve been seeing a lot of across the underground in the past couple of years, and that’s what makes it so charismatic – it’s a lyric video, and yet there’s more visual tone than my eyes are expecting off the bat.
Despite a few retro elements that I can see some listeners tethering to the post-punk revivalism that’s been getting some momentum in indie circles over the last year or so, The High Plains Drifters’ latest single is a song that shows them thinking about the future of their brand and how they want to be recognized among their peers. The dynamics here are just too profound to go unnoticed by critics or serious listeners the same, and while I’ve heard some pretty ambitious content from this crew before, I believe this might be their highest standard submitted thus far.
