VIDEO IS DEAD ON
BEYONCE: COWBOY CARTER
IN 1981, Elvis Costello stunned his new wave worshippers by delivering sixth album Almost Blue, complete with a sticker on the cover warning people that it contained country music.
No such advice from Queen Bey, who hit people squarely between the eyes with her line-dance for the future
Texas Hold ‘Em, and follows that up with her “country” album. Whether her emboldened
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DAN Auerbach and Patrick Carney’s 12th album appears to have been a total blast to create, and as a result it’s their most complete set to date.
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In association with
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THE BLACK KEYS: OHIO PLAYERS GRACE CUMMINGS: RAMONA
THE combination of Melbourne-based Grace’s powerful emotional voice with lush orchestration provided by Jonathan Wilson (who has worked similar magic with Father John Misty and Angel Olsen) is a winner.
The penultimate reworking of Dolly Parton’s Jolene will have fans trawling Johnny Cash’s back catalogue is a moot point, but this is a strong effort to remind people of the strong black country roots many seem happy to neglect. 8 out of 10
Noel Gallagher helps out on three songs, Greg Kurstin is here, Alice Cooper pops up, but the main protagonist is Beck Hansen, who seems to have delved back into his Guero period to flavour half the songs.
Beautiful People
(Stay High) is the best of that team-up, but the Keys also embrace 7 yacht-rock on Don’t Let Me Go, retro soul on You’ll Pay, Neil Young on Live Till I Die and hip-hop on Paper Crown.
9 out of 10
track A Precious Thing is one of the songs of the year so far.
8 out of 10
INDIE-ROCKERS Dylan Flynn and the Dead Poets are delving into themes of loss and reflection in their latest music video.
The Limerick five-piece released a music video for The Story After
They’re Gone the third single off of their upcoming EP.
The contemplative and upbeat single follows a “stream-of-consciousness storyline” where the narrator reflects on his life after losing everyone around him.
The video aims to capture this feeling.
From a local pub where friends gathered on nights out to a childhood soccer pitch, the newly released video for The Story
After They’re Gone takes the viewer on a journey around rooms and locations close to the band’s heart.
“The first shot is the Commercial Bar, which is somewhere that we and a lot of our friends would drink in,” frontman Dylan Flynn told The Scene.
“The song kind of has a double meaning, The Story After They’re Gone both means friends leaving the country or people that might not be in your life anymore and then also death.
“So the first location, The Commercial, was somewhere that me and my friends would drink and a place where we would have drank with people who are gone now.
“And the idea of that was to kind of have different shots of us in there and then eventually at the end of every shot, everyone’s gone.
“The second one was the park which is down by Barrington’s Pier. My granddad was a big rower and that pier was one of his favourite spots in Limerick because it had a great view of the Shannon.
“Then there was my childhood soccer pitch. So it is kind of reminiscing back on your past, thinking about your friends that you would play there when you were younger.
“Then the final kind of main shot is my uncle’s house, so it’s kind of tying back to family… my dad’s side of the family. My granddad was my mom’s side of the family and then that house is in my dad’s side of the family.
“It’s kind of kind of touching on friends and family and people not being in your life anymore. The theme is kind of like the story after they’re gone, but it has a double meaning.”
Dylan explains that in the video for The Story After They’re Gone, the band sought to encapsulate the “subject matter of the song,” depicting a progression where the shots gradually empty until Dylan remains alone.
“We definitely tried to mimic the subject matter of the song in the video,” Dylan said. “When I was writing the song, it kind of all came out in one go, I think that’s where the stream-of-consciousness thing came from.
“And it was me in real-time kind of processing, what I was feeling, thinking about those emotions.
“And the fact that it wasn’t just one thing, my brain was kind of jumping from topic to topic, but they all had this underlying theme
■ of people leaving or being gone.
“I was kind of thinking, like, what do I usually do to cope with those things, and drinking is definitely one.
“Then on the other side of things, what usually happens when I don’t cope with these issues, and overthinking and just kind of wearing yourself out, worrying about stuff that you have no control over.”
The Story After They’re Gone is the third single from the band’s upcoming EP, which Dylan says will act as a “bridging point” between their debut album How are you feeling today? and what will come next for the group.
“This EP is I suppose a bridging point between the last album and what our next project is going to be,” Dylan said. “We kind of picked the songs that felt most connected to the last album.”