If you’re bummed it’s only Tuesday right now, get your chin up and your eyeballs stimulated with a mid-week video roundup of some of the slickest new clips going. On the menu today:
Major Leagues – Someone Sometime
Brisbane-based four-piece Major Leagues deal in a sound stuffed full of melody. Their laid back new single Someone Sometime is accompanied by a video reminiscent of recent space epics Interstellar and the upcoming The Martian. The clip finds an outrageously attractive young lady waking up on some distant planet. She has no spacesuit or any supplies to ensure her survival beyond about a week, but she does somehow have a Walkman and a cassette copy of Someone Sometime
Instead of curling up into the foetal position and crying at these circumstances, she instead dances around this strange new world to the sounds of Major Leagues rather excellent new single, promptly being teleported back to Earth and suddenly finding herself in the middle of Fortitude Valley of all places (a set of circumstances I’m all too familiar with) just in time for a Major Leagues gig.
I bloody love it.
Darkstar – Pin Secure
West Yorkshire electro pop duo Darkstar bring us an insight into working class mundanity with their video for Pin Secure, the lead single of their album Foam Island. Although I’d hardly call your working circumstances mundane when your boss has the body of a man and the head of a koala, I’d say that would make for some pretty good workplace hijinks.
The video is full of jabs at the xenophobic far-right agenda, inspired by the recent UK elections. The song is quirky and atmospheric with lyrics fuelled by disillusionment and frustration, making the accompanying video pretty darn perfect.
Deaf Wish – On
This one is two and a half minutes of non-stop intensity. Every colour of the rainbow shoved directly into your eyeballs, melted faces, visuals that harken back to 2001: A Space Odyssey (only with less murderous robots). Wouldn’t recommend on a hangover but it’s pretty flippin’ fantastic otherwise.
It’s the first official video from the album Pain, just released by Melbourne-based rockers Deaf Wish. They’ve been snapped up by Sub Pop in the United States so look for their star to be on the rise.
Girl Band – Paul
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be behind the costume of a children’s entertainer (a living fucking nightmare I’ve always assumed) then you and Dubliners, Girl Band, share something in common.
Paul is harsh, violent post-rock and its video, exploring the miserable life of the man who spends his working hours hating himself inside a pig costume evidently stitched together somewhere between the fifth and sixth circles of Hell, is striking and creepy as shit.
Their debut album Holding Hands With Jamie is out September 25th.
Miami Horror – Cellophane (So Cruel)
Miami Horror remind me of a simpler time. Where Don Johnson was television’s biggest star and wearing suits without socks and popping your collar were considered the height of fashion. Cellophane (So Cruel) is a beautiful little slice of 80s-inspired synth pop, and the video couldn’t have creeped me out more.
Why everybody in this fictional universe has one limb the size of an anaconda is a mystery to me, but it’s as horrifying as it is enthralling. The chain-like progression of social interactions separated by these nightmare limbs is a fascinating watch.
The video marks the kickoff of the band’s Australian tour for their wildly acclaimed sophomore album All Possible Futures.
Last Dinosaurs – Apollo
Take the video for Weapon Of Choice by Fatboy Slim, replace the lavish mansion with an after hours Brisbane shopping centre and tag Christopher Walken out for a security guard and you have the music video for Apollo, the latest single to drop from pop rock quartet Last Dinosaurs’ upcoming sophomore LP Wellness.
It’s a feel good clip that ties in nicely with the song’s lyrics about living a double life, dude’s dance moves are outrageous as well, I could watch this over and over again.
The Durries – Marlboro Gold
We here at Howl have made no secret of our love for Brisbane-based cig rock newcomers The Durries. They’ve quickly made a name for themselves with raucous live shows and garage rock odes to just about every brand of cigarette you could dream of.
This is their debut music video for their debut song, Marlboro Gold. A tongue in cheek take on the opening credits to The Brady Bunch, half the band are in drag, there’s a Gatorade bong in there somewhere as well as enough darts to stock your local 7-11. Brilliant stuff.