Category: Video Review

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: St. Panther Shares Strutting and Soulful “American Dreams”

Los Angeles-based Mexican/Colombian producer, singer/songwriter, rapper and multi-instrumentalist Dani Bojorges-Giraldo (they/them) is the creative mastermind behind the critically applauded recording project St. Panther. Bojorges-Giraldo’s previously released work was the soundtrack to the early part of this decade for many folks, but following their departure from the major label network, the Los Angeles-based artist took time to be among their peers, friends and loved ones. 

Their highly-anticipated McClenney and Bojorges-Giraldo co-produced EP Strange World was officially released today through art label drink sum wtr. Strange World is Bojorges-Giraldo’s first collection of recorded output since their breakout debut EP, 2020’s These Days. The EP’s material is a defiant, genre-transforming collection of soulful, modern pop songs that narrate and confront the wider climate of uncertainty and oblivion.

Thematically, Strange World is as much about Bojorges-Giraldo’ and their world — their village, their people, themselves — but also, the very strange world we inhabit right now. Drawing from soul, R&B, jazz, hip-hop and alt-pop the EP’s material sets out to urge for a sense of purpose, security and love admits seemingly universal apathy and chaos. 

“I took this long pause to really listen to my village, listen to the needs of my community, and the people around me,” the St. Panther creative mastermind says. “We’re all feeling the weight of the world on our shoulders a bit. We want hope for our listeners, we want people to feel heard and that there’s someone out there representing this feeling.”

Regarding the EP, the Los Angeles-based artist continues: “It’s been highly impactful–to say the absolute least–to witness the world in the state in today. In so many lyrics and melodies, I’m using this set of songs as a method of putting certain messages into our ether, intentionally shouting certain things from the rooftops that a friend jokingly said ‘for world peace;’ but this music is meant to activate people in some way to meditate about our relationship to each other, which feels like a good use for music right now.”

The EP features the previous released EP title track “Strange World,” the old-school Quiet Storm-meets D’Angelo-like “The Deal” and the EP’s latest single “American Dreams.” “American Dreams” is a strutting and soulful call-to-action against desensitization, doomscrolling, apathy and voluntary negligence that says to the listener “if every one of us does something small and local, we can change our world — first locally and then globally.

“Not to make an anthem about desensitization in 2025, but the intention was to start a conversation with several generations. It’s painful to witness 50% of us or more being non-responsive towards our fellow humans in need – whoever they may be,” Bojorges-Giraldo says. “So I wrote about where this lack of a relationship with each other began: on a screen. I highlighted the act of scrolling and how consequential it is to become another cliche ‘American Dream’ because of it, if you ignore the rest of the world to achieve it.” 

The accompanying video for “American Dreams” employs a relatively simple concept of pointing out that we can all connect with each other, without that stupid device in our hands. As the video ends, viewers are invited to scan a QR code that links to a few resources and fundraisers supporting Gazan families.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: debdepan Shares Playful Visual for Cathartic “Ghost”

Margate, UK-based duo debdepan — Chelsea and Grace — officially formed back in 2022, but can trace their origins back to writing sessions during pandemic lockdowns. The duo quickly made a name for themselves through Pie Factory Music’s Emerging Artists Program, which lead to their breakthrough single “Darkest Hour.” “Darkest Hour” gained radio play across the US and Europe, landing on the Deutsche Alternative Charts — and earning the duo a publishing deal with Archangelo Music.

The pair’s debut EP, 2023’s OMEN saw the band firmly establishing dark pop bonafides. The EP’s material received airplay from BBC Introducing, BBC London and BBC 6 Music. Adding to a growing profile across both the UK and European Union, the Margate-based duo has started to make a run of the European festival circuit with standout sets at Portugal’s Westway Lab, Spain’s Pro Weekend and Focus Wales, as well as opening slots for cumgirl8, Miki Berenyi and Pete Doherty. Earlier this year, they opened for The Wants during the New York-based trio’s UK tour. And this month they will be opening for TRAITRS.

The duo’s highly-anticipated sophomore EP Lovers & Others is slated for a November 28, 2025 release through Silent Kid Records. The EP reportedly sees the duo leaner more into dance music-leaning arrangements while still retaining the harder, grunge-inspired roar and bite that have helped them win attention across Europe and elsewhere. And as a result, the rising British duo showcase a refined, genre-blurring sound that’s still emotionally charged — but is also physically irresistible.

Written in the year since the duo relocated to Margate, the EP reportedly sees them balancing introspective vulnerability with a”pretty sad girl but also kind of party” bit of duality — a reflection of the late-night emotional shifts in their town’s nightlife scene paired with long, contemplative costal walks.

Lovers & Others EP will feature the previously released “Habit,” and “The Girl,” and the EP’s final, pre-release single “Ghost.” “Ghost” begins with a mid-tempo bit of melodic pop-inspired post punk and goth that seems to channel Florence and the Machine, before making a rapid left turn to a throbbing bit of Echoes-era The Rapture-like dance punk banger. But at its core, is the hopefulness of a new potential love, followed by the bitter ache of having that hope dashed when they inexplicably ghost. And then, there’s the release of bilious anger of discovering that person is a coward, who couldn’t — or wouldn’t — tell you the truth. “This song had to feel like a journey,” the band explains. “It needed a big fat pop chorus to juxtapose the dark and miserable verses.”

Recorded in Ramsgate, UK with engineer Mike Collins, “Ghost,” is informed by his inspired production choices. “Mike had a wicked idea to layer a bunch of guitars in the middle 8 to really build some tension,” the duo says. The end result is a song that showcases the band’s ability to balance aching vulnerability with explosive catharsis.

The playful, Halloween-inspired video for “Ghost.” was shot by the band across various Margate-based locations and features them dressed as DIY-styled ghosts, complete with goofy errors, including a visible drone controller peeking out beneath one of the duo’s costume.

“I borrowed my dad’s drone to film it, and if you look closely you can spot the controller under the ghost sheet!” they explain. “We wanted something playful with the ghost theme that we could shoot ourselves. Filming around Margate was pretty embarrassing, but at least the costumes meant we couldn’t see most people laughing at us.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: cruush Shares “120 Minutes”-Era MTV-like “Rupert Giles”

Manchester-based indie outfit cruush — Amber Warren (vocals, guitar), Arthur Boyd (guitar), Fotis Kalantzis (drums) and Bruno Evans (bass) — quickly emerged into the national and international scenes with their first three EPs, 2023’s Wishful Thinker and last year’s Ladybird Song and Nice Things Now, All The Time, which saw them quickly establishing a sound that was both forceful and tender, and sincere to the point of snot-crying with layers of indie rock fuzz. Their music has been forged in the drudgery of soul-sucking service jobs, rainy Manchester days and nights.

So far, the British quartet have received coverage from The Independent, NYLON, NME, BrooklynVegan, Dork, DIY Magazine, So Young, The Line of Best Fit, Clash Magazine, Rough Trade and Consequence, as well as airplay from BBC Radio 1′s Jack Saunders, BBC 6 Music‘s Steve Lamacq and Emily Pilbeam, and Radio X’s John Kennedy. And adding to a growing profile nationally, the quartet has shared stages with BDRMM, Pale Blue Eyes, NewDad, GIFT, BASHT and Girl Scout.

In a short period of time, the band’s sound has gone through a shift that has ushered a new era of tightly wound grunge pop rippers. And to further flesh out their evolving sound and approach, they enlisted Norfolk, UK-based Sickroom Studios producer Owen Turner.

Their latest single “Rupert Giles” may arguably be the most 120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock-like song of their growing catalog, as well as one of the more purposely direct. Featuring a classic grunge song structure — alternating quieter verses and rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses paired with layers of guitar fuzz and thunderous drumming, the song’s arrangement serves as lush and dreamy bed for Warren’s plaintive and gorgeous vocal. Yes, for those of you, who are like me, inching towards old, the song will bring about memories of some of the stuff you were listening to back in 1994 — but while being remarkably modern.

“On a writing retreat to Wales we took a sunrise hike up Penygader. We listened to nothing but Neil Young, Brownhorse, and the Van Halen song ‘Panama,’” the band recalls. “We were sitting by this lake at 6am, with the sun rising, listening to it and all felt well. We knew we had a great song written, we were all sleep deprived and sweaty, the stars were aligning.”

Directed by Zack Arlo, the moody and impressionistic visual for “Rupert Giles” manages to further emphasize the 90s MTV-era vibe of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: London’s deathcrash Shares Heartbroken Yet Anthemic “Triumph”

London-based slowcore/post rock outfit deathcrash — Tiernan Banks (vocals, guitar), Matthew Weinberger (guitar), Patrick Fitzgerald (bass) and Noah Bennett (drums) — have come to prominence as part of a busy and very talented South London scene that includes Black Country, New Road; Jerskin Fendrix, Sorry and Black Midi, while setting themselves apart with a distinctly mysterious energy.

The London-based quartet’s full-length debut, 2022’s 65 minute-long Return was released to praise from Loud and Quiet, who wrote that the album was “an embarrassment of musical riches that is only matched by the depth of evocations that haunt the record.” Building upon a growing profile, 6 months after the release of their debut, the quartet went to the Outer Hebrides to record their sophomore album, 2023’s Less, which was a focused and lean progression of their sound to further critical applause.

Less was followed by a collection of remixes including collaborations with Water From Your Eyes and Mandy, Indiana.

deathcrash’s latest single “Triumph” is the rising British outfit’s first bit of new material in over two years. “Triumph” is a slow-burning, brooding tune featuring the sort of enormous, fuzzy power chords and rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses that seemingly channel 90s grunge paired with an achingly heartbroken vocal delivery and thunderous drumming. At its core is a sense of the regret, loss and uneasy acceptance of adulthood.

“This song is about fighting the urge to drive into oncoming traffic” the band comment. “It marks Patrick’s return to songwriting. It shows that growing up is no ‘triumph’, but an occasionally graceful and occasionally bitter acceptance of who you are now.”

Directed and shot by Patrick Fitzgerald and St.Teilo, the accompanying video for “Triumph” captures a sense of youth being fleeting, of knowing that things can and often will be painful and difficult — and yet there are small moments of being at shows, fucking around with pals, of just being somewhat carefree are the pleasures we need to cherish. This is interspersed with late night scenes of driving.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal’s Hush Shares Lush and Prismatic “The Mirrors Were Right”

Montréal-based trio Hush — Paige Barlow (vocals) and multi-instrumentalists Miles Dupire-Gagnon and Gabriel Lambert — are part of a new wave of Montréal-based acts actively reshaping psych pop.

Citing an eclectic array of influences that includes Broadcast, The Velvet Underground, Melody’s Echo Chamber, Steve Lacy, Cocteau Twins and Ariel Pink, the Montréal-based psych pop trio create a sound that’s simultaneously nostalgic and forward-looking. Their music lives in the blurred light of perception — half memory, half hallucination — and is an invitation to lose yourself inside of their hall of mirrors-like dream world.

The trio’s debut single “The Mirrors Were Right” also serves as the first single from their full-length debut, slated for a 2026 release through Simone Records. Sonically, “The Mirrors Were Right” is a prismatic tune featuring shimmering guitars, dusty and warped analog drum patterns and bursts glistening, kosmiche music-like synths as a lush and dreamy bed for Barlow’s ethereal vocal. The song is one-part half-remembered fever dream and one-part existential reflection while seeming to subtly channel Bibi Club and others.

The song’s lyrics came to Barlow as she reflected on long past, but long-lasting periods of dissociation and on flashes of clarity that cut through them now. “The mirrors are right” when reflections feel distorted; “luckily alive” with head above water, somewhere between the surface and the clouds.

“For the clip, we wanted to portray a fractured sense of self. The distorted inner witness. Evolving identities over time. Imagined through a cubist and surrealist lens: worlds sensed, not witnessed,” the band says of the accompanying video. “Images drift and reform, mirroring the song’s unfolding. A meditation on multiplicity. The self made plural.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Genesis Owusu Returns with Punchy “DEATH CULT ZOMBIE”

Acclaimed, multi-ARIA Award-winning Ghanian-born, Canberra-based JOVM mainstay Genesis Owusu‘s sophomore album 2023’s STRUGGLER was an exploration of the chaos and absurdity of life, our ability to endure and how to get through it all.

The album’s material was deeply inspired by a close friend hitting the brink and coming through the other side, and questions of life and beauty that he found himself contemplating during readings of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. 

Recorded between the States and Australia, STRUGGLER‘s producers traversed several different musical genres — and includes Jason Evigan, who has worked with RUFUS DU SOL and SZA; Mikey Freedom Hart, who worked on Jon Batiste’s 2021 Grammy of the Year Album, We Are; Sol Was, who worked on Beyoncé’s Renaissance; and Owusu’s long-time collaborators and producers Andrew Klippel and Dave Hammer.

Earlier this year, the acclaimed JOVM mainstay released “PIRATE RADIO,” the first bit of material since the release of his sophomore album, which I hope means a new album is on the horizon. But in the meantime, Owusu shares the fittingly Halloween-themed “DEATH CULT ZOMBIE.” Anchored around a punchy, hook-driven punk rock-meets-Brit pop arrangement, the acclaimed Aussie’s punchy in-your-face vocal delivers observations on the deeply entrenched thought indoctrination, divisive global conversations and absurd circular logic of our mad, mad, mad world — with song scathingly mocking Christian Nationalists, Donald Trump and his MAGA death cult. The song points out that we’re in a figurative zombie apocalypse, and the lemmings are blindly jumping off the cliff . . .

“For most people, the shaking up of what they consider to be true is too scary and inconvenient. Once you’ve picked your truth, you live by it staunchly despite whatever pesky ‘facts’ and ‘logic’ get in the way,” Genesis Owusu explains. “Pride won’t let you be wrong, fear won’t let you be free, dogma won’t let you be aware. The delusion is more comfortable. But the longer you sit in that delusion, the faster the zombification spreads through your body like a plague; like a scourge. Gotta be brave enough to break from the cult.”

Directed by Issac Brown, the accompanying video for “DEATH CULT ZOMBIE” follows the acclaimed JOVM mainstay desperately trying to escape a collection of Thriller-meets-Internet troll-like zombies — with a fitting spooky season twist.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Hop! Hop! Diablo Funk Share Joyous and Funky “Bailas como un diablo”

Since forming back in 2014, Mexican outfit Hop! Hop! Diablo Funk — Jud (vocal) MC Rita (guitar), Coros Perico (guitar), Coros Damien (drums), Jona (trumpet), Bajo Hector (trumpet), Eli (sax), Dyanata (trombone) — have stood out for crafting a sound that draws from rock, funk and several other genres paired with lyrics that address every day life situations, social issues and more.

While making their rounds of their national festival circuit with sets at La Fiesta de la Música, Rock x la Vida, Vibra Chapultepec, Zocalo, Hop! Hop! Diablo Funk, the band has also established a reputation for a dynamic and fun live set.

Hop! Hop! Diablo Funk’s latest single “Bailas como un diablo” is an ecstatic, nostalgia-including song that channels a seamless synthesis of 80s Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine and 70s disco while showcasing a band that can craft a dance floor friendly groove and a remarkably catchy hook.

Look, shit is bleak right now. And it’s going to get dire — soon. This song is a much-needed joy bomb, a reminder that everyone has to grab hold of a bit of fun whenever and however they could. It’s the only way that you’ll be able to survive.

FYI: For those who are sensitive to strobe light, the accompanying video features flashing lights. Besides that the video features the band — fittingly — playing on a flashing Saturday Night Fever-inspired stage with a disco ball just above them.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Hallucinophonics Shares Brooding and Cinematic “Haze of Time”

British indie outfit Hallucinophonics exists as the crossroads of consciousness and sound, creating immersive, psychedelic soundscapes that defy and blend the boundaries between reality and dreams. Drawing inspiration from Pink Floyd, Tame Impala and others, they attempt to create music that’s both an artistic statement and a transformative experience.

Ranging from space rock anthems to introspective, nocturnal transmissions, the British indie outfit weaves ethereal textures, progressive song structures and hypnotic rhythms while their material explores themes of evolving consciousness and existential discovery.

Their latest single “Haze of Time” may arguably be the most New Wave and goth-like tune of their growing catalog. Channeling Heaven Up Here-era Echo and The Bunnymen and The Cure, “Haze of Time” features angular, driving bass lines, jangling and swirling guitars serving as a broodingly eerie and cinematic bed for yearning, achingly plaintive vocal. The song seemingly evokes the feel and vibe of spooky season with an uncanny specificity.

The accompanying video follows a denim-clad young woman expressively dancing in a graffiti alley — but as the video progresses, it suggests that the line between sanity and insanity is very thin.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Ulrika Spacek Shares Eerily Atmospheric “Build a box Then Break It”

Formed back in 2014, London-based art rock outfit Ulrika Spacek — founding members Rhys Edwards (vocals, guitar) and Rhys Williams (guitar) , alongside Joseph Stone (guitar, keys), Callum Brown (drums), Syd Kemp (bass) — can trace their origins back to a night the band’s founding duo spent in Berlin, where the pair conceptualized the project around their mutually held passions and influences — in particular, Television, Pavement, Sonic Youth and krautrock.

Upon the duo’s return to the UK, they began working on the material that would eventually comprise their full-length debut, 2016’s The Album Paranoia, which featured album tracks “She’s A Cult,” and “Strawberry Glue.”

Since then, the project which started out as a duo, expanded to quintet with the addition of Stone, Callum, Brown and Kemp – and then released 2017’s critically applauded sophomore album, Modern English Decoration, an album that saw the band pushing their sound into a more textured territory. Their third and latest album, last year’s Compact Trauma channeled the anxiety and dislocation of the modernize age through a prismatic haze of guitars, loops and elliptical lyrics.

The British art rock outfit’s highly-anticipated fourth album EXPO is slated for a February 6, 2026 release through Full Time Hobby. Unlike its predecessors, which looked within EXPO reportedly holds a mirror up to the world and captures a warped reflection. The material was deeply informed by the band’s most recent American tour and was written while the band’s Rhys Edwards was awaiting the birth of his daughter, and started to wonder what kind of future world she’d inherit.

Although their foundations have long been in art rock, they’ve been increasingly drawing from electronic elements. But as a band, they’re interested in the glitchy space that exists between the two. And as a result, their most recent work reckons with human warmth and digital isolation, while being welcoming and alienating, exploring the uneasy tension of modern life as we know it. “Our music has always been a collage – a bit patchwork, sonically – but what makes this album a landmark for us is that we went one step further and made our own sound bank and essentially sampled ourselves,” the band says.

The band creates their own doppelgängers in a world of almost-real, where the band appears as if they’re in a funhouse hall of mirrors. Digital drums are sampled and layered over real drums and the like, creating an eerie, spectral vibe. Sonically, album’s material grapples with the organic and the digital while dancing across musical languages.

EXPO‘s first single “Build a Box Then Break It” serves a de-facto album mission statement that sees the band actively pushing their sound into a new, liminal space. Seemingly channeling Geoff Barrow‘s work with Portishead and Beak>, Radiohead‘s Amnesiac and The Orielles‘ The Goyt Method EP, “Build a Box Then Break It,” features sampled upon sampled breakbeats, eerily atmospheric synths and squiggling guitars serving as a broodingly uneasy bed for Rhys Edwards’ plaintive and uncannily Thom Yorke-like delivery. The new single evokes our fractured experience of reality, reflected not through our eyes but through various screens.

The accompanying video was edited by Low Limit Vision and features live footage shot by Pedro Soler interspersed with title cards, math equations and other ephemeral imagery.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tucson’s Mute Swan Shares woozy “Hypnosis Tapes”

With the release of their debut EP, 2016’s Ultraviolet and their full-length debut, 2021’s Only Ever, Tucson-based shoegaze/dream pop outfit Mute Swan — currently, Mike Barnett (guitar/vocals), Prabjit Virdee (bass, vocals), and Gilbert Flores (drums) — quickly established a swirling, densely layered take on psych rock that some critics and others have compared to Of Montreal and Soft Bulletin-era Flaming Lips.

2021’s Only Ever was released to praise from The FADER, Merry-Go-Round Magazine and several others, as well as airplay on KEXP.

The band recently signed to Hit The North Records/Wooden Tooth Records, who released the Tucson-based outfit’s latest single “Hypnosis Tapes.” The new single is the first bit of new of material from the band since their debut album — and is part of a batch of material that will be posthumously released after the tragic death of founding member Thomas Sloane.

“Hypnosis Tapes” features Barnett’s breathy delivery ethereally floating over a woozy soundscape featuring glitchy and swelling electronics, fuzzy, acid-tinged guitars paired with relentlessly driving four-on-floor. While still drawing from shoegaze, “Hypnosis Tapes” may arguably be the most Brit Pop-leaning track of their growing catalog to date.

“We had only approved the final mix of this song weeks before when we lost our best friend and guitarist, Tom Sloane. It is the first of a collection of his last songs we felt especially determined to give a proper release into the world,” the band’s Mike Barnett says. “Displaying some of his best textural guitarwork, this song is about finding some kind of inner peace through the noise of chaotic times and endless mental chatter. There’s a meditation tape sampled at the end, as well as a vacuum cleaner in reverse at the beginning (an inside joke of ours).”

Directed by the band’s Mike Barnett, the accompanying video for “Hypnosis Tapes” features the band’s three surviving members hanging out in someone’s living room. Virdee and Flores are busy fiddling around while Barnett strums his guitar and sings. And it’s all set in trippy kaleidoscopic filters, which sees the members melt and morph into one another.

The new single and video comes on the heels of the Tucson-based band playing opening slots for Horse Jumper of Love, Wednesday, Tanukichan and Peel Dream Magazine, as well as a set at this year’s Levitation Festival. The band has big plans for next year, so be on the lookout.
 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Errol Eats Everything Teams Up with Furious Evans and Blu on a Brooding, Hard-hitting Remix of “Beyond Yonder”

Errol Eats Everything is an emcee and Black entrepreneur, who’s actively trying to reshape the music landscape while enacting positive change in the community.

Released earlier this year, his self-titled album is a bold manifesto, which seems him addressing systemic injustices, personal struggle and the continuing fight for freedom and equality with the album’s material voicing the bitter frustrations of a society that routinely fails its marginalized and struggling. His work demands listeners confront the harsh realities of their life and then asks them to find the strength and resilience to raise about them, reaffirming hip-hop’s enduring power to challenge, uplift and transform.

For a period of time, the emcee and entrepreneur stepped away from music to focus on community-building, creating solutions that have positively impacted the lives of young Black people while solidifying a hard-earned role as a visionary leader.

The Beyond Yonder Remixes EP sees Errol Eats Everything collaborating with Blu, Don Von Jovi, Rome Streetz, Planet Asia, Brother Ali and a lengthy list of others on a series of remixes of Errol Eats Everything LP track “Beyond Yonder.”

While the album version of “Beyond Yonder” sees Errol Eats Everything spitting righteously conscious bars delivered with an MF DOOM-like flow over a DJ Premier-like production featuring a lush and soulful sample paired with tweeter and woofer rattling boom bap. The Furious Evans remix of “Beyond Yonder” features Errol Eats Everything and Blu trading bars over a production that retails the tweeter and woofer rattling boom bap of the original, but places it all within a brooding It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot-era DMX-like production.

Directed and edited by Marquan Ford, the accompanying video for “Beyond Yonder (Furious Evans Remix, feat. Blu) is set in a world of sex and vampires, inspired by Blade and Vampire Tales.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Talking Violet Shares Cathartic “Destroy”

https://youtu.be/5Jt6dWTGDno?si=ktqvo-4Q0wYmC4Ll

Windsor, ON-based quartet Talking Violet — Jillian Goyeau (vocals, guitar), Jayden Turnbull (guitar, vocals), Jeremie Brosseau (drums) and Dylan Iannicello (bass) — have quickly developed and established a sound that sees the Canadian outfit seamlessly blending elements of shoegaze, grunge and dream pop into what they’ve dubbed “dreamo.” Thematically, their work touches upon how we wrestle with the grief of personal change — especially in personal experiences. 

Earlier this year, I wrote about their Justin Meli-produced, Will Yip-mastered “In Your Mind,” a track that seemed to channel The Sundays and Tallies while capturing a very specific sense of loving someone through pain and uncertainty and not quite knowing what to do – or if there was anything you could do.

Their latest sgbnle “Destroy” continues a run of material that channels 120 Minutes-era MTV alt-rock while being anchored in earnestness and deeply lived in personal experience. Unlike its immediate predecessor, “Destroy” thematically and lyrically turns inward, offering a subtly uneasy sense of closure and acceptance. Although that relationship or chapter in your life has ended, their ghost lingers in your life — some longer than others.

“Destroy is about closing a chapter in my life where I experienced a lot of change which I talked a lot about throughout our Everything At Once record,” the band’s Jillian Goyeau says. “Before moving on I kinda needed to say goodbye, so that’s what Destroy does. It’s me finally accepting that people can both love you and hurt you at the same time and vice versa. You can love someone even when they aren’t meant to be in your life anymore.”

The Canadian band’s latest single continues the emotional thread of their latest album Everything At Once, drawing from the grief and heartache of interpersonal change. ” “These tracks draw on a lot of grief of change, most specifically, the grief of relationship changes in our lives,” Goyeau explains. “I was going through changes that I now see as necessary but were incredibly painful at the time. It made me realize how much I had depended on my relationships with others for my identity. I had to slowly relearn who I was—and spent the next few years healing my people-pleasing baseline. It’s still something I work on every day.”

Directed by Gavin Michael Booth the gorgeously shot video for “Destroy” features the members of the band smashing things to pieces — in a way that’s rousingly cathartic.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Vanille Shares Slow-Burning and Swooning “Un chant d’amour”

Rachel Leblanc is a Montréal-based singer/songwriter and creative mastermind behind the critically applauded recording project Vanille, which has seen the French-Canadian artist craft a sound that meshes elements of 60s folk and chanson in a way that brings the listener into a dreamlike world of dense, verdant forests and swooning heartbreak.

Her recently released, Christophe Charest-Latif-produced third album Un chant d’amour sees the acclaimed French-Canadian artist marking the beginning of new creative chapter, that sees Leblanc’s and a talented cast of musicians, including Jules Encore and Corail‘s Julien Comptour; Velours Velours‘ and Corail’s Philippe Noël; Carla Chanelle‘s and Roselle’s Christophe Rosset-Balcer; Allô Fantôme‘s Samuel Gendron; Arielle Soucy; and Velours Velours’ Raphaël Pépin-Tanguay crafting a sound that draws from retro soul and the mid 1960s-early 1970s sunshine pop movement. Leblanc’s melodies and lyrics are rooted in sentimental overtones. And as a result, the album’s material is meant to unfold like a scented letter received from a mysterious valentine.

Un chant d’amour‘s latest single, album title track “Un chant d’amour” is a slow-burning ballad anchored around Leblanc’s achingly melancholy delivery, atmospheric Rhodes and a syrupy slow-dance inspired backbeat. And while seemingly channelling 70s AM radio rock, “Un chant d’amour” is the sort of song you’d play when you want to slow-dance at the midnight ball with your long-held crush or your loved one.

Directed by Irina Tempea and Elizabeth Landry the accompanying video for “Un chant d’amour” is an swooningly sentimental visual featuring a mixture of dusty found footage and the rising French-Canadian artist in a wedding gown to create a wedding that never really took place.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Dreamwave Shares Mosh Pit Friendly “Moon Buggy”

Bristol, UK-based rock outfit Dreamwave — Benjamin Symons (vocals, guitar, synths), Hester Battin (vocals, keys, synths), Grant Cameron Organ (bass), and Alex Andrews (drums, percussion) — have quickly established themselves as one of the most exciting, up-and-coming bands in the UK psych scene. And with a growing presence across the European Union, the British quartet seem to be gaining momentum.

Dreamwave’s third EP is slated for release through Stolen Body Records, and the announcement of the forthcoming EP coincides with the unveiling of a new physical passing, which will feature this year’s Moon Dogs EP on Side A and the soon-to-be released Drifter EP on Side B. But in the meantime, the forthcoming third EP’s first single “Moon Buggy” is a sweaty and tense mosh pit friendly ripper, anchored around punchily delivered hooks and choruses that brings OSees and JOVM mainstays Frankie and the Witch Fingers to mind.

The new single originated as an improvised jam session during their live shows, gradually evolving over the course of two years into a fully fleshed out, polished song that found its way into their sets. The EP version was recorded in three takes and accurately showcases the band’s bruising live energy.

The self-directed and accompanying video for “Moon Buggy” was filmed at Mendips Raceway, a dirt-track in southwest UK. The chaotic and downright fun imagery of battered cars colliding in clouds of dust just feels perfect.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tame Impala Shares Woozy, Self-Aware “My Old Ways”

Acclaimed Aussie JOVM mainstay Tame Impala‘s highly-anticipated fifth album, Deadbeat saw its official release today through Columbia Records. 

Deeply inspired by bush doof culture and the Western Australia rave scene,Deadbeat sees Tame Impala mastermind Kevin Parker recasting himself as a sort of future primitive rave act. Conceived in various locations over the last handful of years, the album was largely galvanized between Parker’s hometown of Fremantle and his Inijidup, Western Australia-based studio Wave House during the first half of this year. 

Renowned for being a perfectionist, Parker’s fifth Tame Impala album showcases an artist with a leveled-up mastery of songwriting but crafted with a newfound embrace of spontaneity. The result is a collection of remarkably catchy, hook-driven, club-friendly psych pop while being some of Parker’s most direct songwriting of his career to date. Sonically, there are timbres and textures that add new dimension to the material’s overall sound paired with a much richer, more playful vocal range. 

Lyrically, the album finds Parker channeling an endless bummer with a self-deprecating fuck-up of a narrator stuck in a hopelessly negative feedback loop, when he should have long had his shit together. We all know this kind of dude — and in some cases, he is us. Thematically, the album suggests raving as self-inquiry, self-medication in lieu of self-care and the kick-on as domestic bliss. Dance and sweat your troubles, stresses and concerns away on the dance floor, y’all. Reality can wait another day or two — hell, fuck it, another three. 

Deadbeat features the previously released “End of Summer,” “Loser,” “Dracula,” and its latest single, album opener “My Old Ways.” Anchored around a looping, twinkling piano figure, “My Old Ways” begins with Parker accompanying himself just on piano for about a minute or so, before the song quickly morphs into a mind-bending, trance-inducing bit of Larry Levan-like house with fluttering and oscillating synths and thumping beats. And at its core is a deeply self-aware, self-referential narrator, who is acutely cognizant that they’ve slid into a long-held negative pattern while simultaneously forgiving themselves and being self-flagellating for that backslide.

While being a serious banger, “My Old Ways” offers what may be one of the more empathetic portrayals of a fuck up that I’ve heard in some time. I’d argue that most of us could see some of ourselves in the song.

Directed by Kristofski, the accompanying video for “My Old Ways” features cinéma vérité footage the director took, following Parker throughout the process of recording the album in studios across the world, including his native Australia.