For all the LP’s attention to love, sex, and excess, a theme that might be swept under the rug is anxiety. This lyric is one of the record’s edgiest moments. You can tell that Lewis is straining to sound honest here, and the apprehensive tone of his voice as he utters this line gives it away.

The reality of love is often pain, with the possibility of heartbreak and loss amplifying through the soul and dark thoughts persisting for years. The singer has power in love and knows that he can, with even simple actions, cause immense harm to his lover. Avoiding this, Passion Pit first labels love as a thing of the greedy, to be possessed rather than shared and ultimately egotistical. When love is rejected, their truth is revealed: loneliness, like lust, is too often mistaken for love, so much so that the meaning of each is tainted. The immediate satisfaction of being near someone cures much of this, leaving the singer in full belief of his mostly misguided and grief-stricken view on love. Avoiding the hurt is part of the attraction of a shared love, but it appears as if Michael Angelakos has fallen off to many times to try again right now.

There is a double-edged sword to seeking the best of people, one that is sad and common. Everyone, is aware of the rumored archetypical “good man,” a person balanced, virtuous, noble, and brave, callous but kind, intelligent but strong. The hero in novels and the superhero in comics, the man is flawed but honest, creating an ideal that cannot actually be.

A look into the soul, “Mirrored Sea” realizes that, despite the desires of the heart to be the mythical man, the actual idea is temporary, passing like the nightly cycles of a bar. In our world, these men actually do not exist, their characteristics a fleeting glimmer among a crowd, disappearing as soon as the search begins. The men exist in part due to our own desires, but the real world presents everyone dynamically, always making many, and thus no real good men. The result is a sobering look at the soul, one which is flawed by nature, just like everyone else.

Sometimes strength and pain have little to do with each other and the subtle, less direct blows do more harm. Rather than relying on strong attacks and heavy words, the girl in “Hideaway” relies on gossip, clever remarks, and biting metaphor to sting harder than thought possible. Perhaps angry at her mother at home, the girl is left to say things that she does not mean, insulting far worse than her intent. The thorn-like words hit home, reducing respect and the figuratively grand people in life to targets, easily struck down but in sinister, cowardly ways. Passion Pit is well aware that even the tiniest detail can kill, the metaphorical tiny shot to bring down the Death Star.