by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
These days music videos are often released to push tour dates or various announcements a band might have after their album release, but sometimes its simply a welcome reminder that “hey, this album is awesome.” Such is the case with Es’ new video “Severed,” a quarantine video done right, full of kitchen, garden, and shower performances that are defiantly goofy but as deadpan as can be. That steely form of deadpan fits the band’s music, as their debut LP, Less of Everything (which we had the pleasure to premiere) absorbs synth punk at its most taut, everything snapped perfectly into place. Out on Upset The Rhythm (Naked Roommate, Vintage Crop, Primo!), we called it “primal focused post-punk that’s tense, commanding, and eager to disrupt any sense of complacency.”
In the months since the release, “Severed” has become a true highlight of the record, a song that’s built on a disorienting synth line that feels part Outer Limits and part Lynchian displacement. The skeletal framework comes to life as the rhythm section pounds a low end groove into the mix, everything swirling together with careful construction. Es remind us “it’s never quite what its made out to be, somewhere between sound and sanity, but I guess I’ll give up eventually, severed from what’s never meant to be” before the statement of the year, “hanging by a thread, uncertainty lies ahead.”