Louis Miller is a man on a mission in the new single “Drop on the Leaf,” and I think that mission is to create an emotional center through melodicism – or even the absence of. From the moment we press the play button on “Drop on the Leaf” forward, there’s a constant juxtaposition of texture and harmony that occasionally gets twisted when Miller is breaking off his most endearing verses. There is never a second for us to catch up, nor he; there’s a sense of urgency behind his words and the musicality that surrounds them no one can evade, and to some extent, it somehow makes this song sound like a ballad.
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The vocal can be spitfire and gritty and profoundly melodic depending on the gear Miller wants to shift to, with the groove remaining so sterile it stings the audience with every passing moment. The percussion is far from quaking, but instead softly sewn into the bottom of this mix as to give a pushy foundation beneath all of the fireworks up top. Layered isn’t doing this piece justice – some love went into making this so powerfully chilling, and that’s obvious even in the most casual of listening sessions.
Interestingly, despite the beefiness of the song at relatively moderate volumes, the EQ on the vocal and bassline are both deceptively physical, leaving a lot of the fat on the sidelines in protest of filler-packed content debuting on the mainstream this year. Conservative moves were critical to making “Drop on the Leaf” sound so outrageously different but appealing to the radio element at the same time, and I don’t know that it would be the same single today were a disciplined musician like Louis Miller not installed at the helm of the project from the jump.
Alluring when quiet and actually anthemic when dialed up as loud as your speakers can take it, “Drop on the Leaf” doesn’t lose its luster no matter what volume we’re enjoying it at, and for an indie release out of Miller’s scene, that’s a victory and then some. He’s balancing a spectrum of tonal exponents brilliantly here, and for critics like myself, his is the sort of aesthetical formula that makes breaking down the music so fun. He isn’t giving me something I’ve already heard somewhere else on the internet – this material has personality that speaks directly to the situation in which it was recorded, as if to reference contemporary alt-spoken word and a deeper bohemian subtext simultaneously.
I can’t speak for every listener out there, but after checking out “Drop on the Leaf” I have to say it feels like Louis Miller has issued a definitive identity piece in this single worthy of even more buzz than it’s already received. Miller still has a lot of potential that will need to be exploited further, and the way it’s teased in this performance says he’s going to keep raising the bar for himself on every occasion he’s afforded. That’s a high caliber standard, and it’s why he’s on my radar indefinitely.
Troy Johnston