B-Side Guys

“Killed time but never wanted to be done” opens Laughed the Boy’s “Somewhere in Between” like a confession whispered through layers of reverb. It’s a fitting entrance for a song that treats memory and moment like overlapping transparencies, each one slightly blurring the next.

The narrative unfolds in paradox: being first out the door somehow equals feeling old, getting lost is reframed as entertainment. These contradictions swim through waves of guitar that soften their edges without resolving their tensions. When the lyrics ask “is this real or is this a dream,” they’re not so much seeking answers as acknowledging the futility of the question.

Each verse builds like a series of Polaroids developing in reverse—images becoming less distinct rather than clearer with time. The production supports this effect, wrapping clear statements in gauzy textures until even straightforward declarations like “I see it once, I’ve seen it all” start to wobble and drift.

The song’s central metaphor emerges in its maze imagery: “locked inside my head again, you’ll only catch me when there’s no place left to hide.” It’s a claustrophobic revelation buried in expansive sound, like reading graffiti on the walls of an empty warehouse. The contrast between lyrical confinement and sonic space creates its own kind of vertigo.

By the time we reach “I’m not waiting for your call,” repeated like a mantra, the distinction between assertion and denial has blurred completely. The statement loops back on itself, each repetition undermining its own certainty until waiting and not waiting become indistinguishable states.

The wall of guitars never quite reaches the screaming crescendos typical of shoegaze; instead, they maintain a persistent shimmer that mirrors the lyrics’ state of perpetual almost-resolution. It’s the sound of thoughts circling but never landing, of conclusions constantly deferred.

“What comes and goes, it’s not for us to know” serves as both chorus and philosophical shrug. The track treats this uncertainty not as wisdom or defeat but as a simple fact, like gravity or echo—forces that shape our movement through space whether we acknowledge them or not.

Laughed the Boy has crafted something peculiar here: a song about being lost that feels precisely mapped, about confusion that sounds deliberately arranged. These apparent contradictions don’t cancel each other out but stack up like sedimentary layers, each one supporting the next.

The final refrain of being “lost somewhere you won’t find me” lands not as escape but as acceptance. It’s a declaration of independence from the need for resolution itself, delivered in a song that makes peace with its own unresolved state.