EDINBURGH’S The Son(s) are not a band to shy away from the raw side of living in their creative pursuits.
The video for their latest song, which the band are premiering today with Backseat Mafia, is the absolutely soul-wide-open paean “Lord, I Am Grateful”, and which was filmed immersed in the icy, peaty currents of Loch Tay.
Massed voices chorus over a skeletal strum as the camera navigates through bubbles, clouds of soil runoff, lofts skyward, seeking, ever seeking. A bass suggests more.
And then, halfway through, the guitars erupt and snarl, foam, unleashed, chords crashing like The Birthday Party were really quite pissed off about something. Our filmic companion’s hands appear intermittently and, as those guitars subside into stillness, he finds a walkway. The catch: it’s fully submerged. Any absolute happy ending lies in doubt here.
The band said of the song: “We recorded ‘Lord, I Am Grateful’, and large parts of the album it comes from, in a huge, beautiful, old, empty theatre, that [had] sat empty for decades, hidden away in North Leith in Edinburgh.
“It’s a beautiful, evocative place to record, full of the ghosts of the bands and people who’ve played there. I think some of those ghosts made it into the recordings.
“The video was filmed in Loch Tay in February, maybe March; but certainly when it was far too cold to be in the water.”
It’s raw and real and right up in your face. Taken along with Aberdeenshire’s noir-folk purveyors Fair Mothers, there’s a suggestion that music is getting very stripped back and unflinching along the east coast of Scotland right now.
“Lord, I Am Grateful” is taken from The Son(s) forthcoming album, The Creatures We Were Before We Are Ghosts, which is available now for pre-order over at Bandcamp; there’s a limited run of 50 on clear vinyl. An icy immersion in their songstream may be just what you need.
