Had a great meta moment the first time I listened to “You Heard What You Wanted,” the second track from Dead Professional’s new Young Hardware EP.

The chorus reads:

You heard what you wanted when I spoke
I felt your sighing and relief each time we kissed
You don’t believe that there’s a fire underneath that smoke
But I know…

…then there’s a long pause before John Harouff delivers the line my brain was subconsciously begging for…

…that there is

That last line is so damn satisfying, I think because an expectation is created, the payoff is withheld, and then the last piece of the puzzle is placed snugly right where it belongs. The first time it happened I decided that I loved the song right away, and then I remembered what the song was called and decided I loved it even more.

What’s most remarkable is that this isn’t the only aspect of the song that plays with expectations and negative space. I say that the lyrics above comprise the chorus, but you could make an argument that the main guitar riff (which is voiced by a guitar tone I would crawl into if I could) is really a wordless chorus — something you might not expect from a song with a strong arena beat and a memorable, repeated quatrain. You could even say that the svelte, sub-3:00 running length of “You Heard What You Wanted” offers a satisfaction paradox — what’s there is extremely satisfying, but it ends so quickly that you’re left wanting more, so you have to listen again and again to scratch the itch.

See what you think below — I think it’s an architectural marvel.

Dead Professional — “You Heard What You Wanted” [Spotify/iTunes]