stream German emo band Oakhands' debut album & watch the "La Jetee" video
Munich, Germany’s Oakhands have just followed their 2016 EP The Age of Swans with their debut full-length, The Shadow of Your Guard Receding, today via This Charming Man Records (order yours). It covers a lot of ground across its 11 songs, including Touche Amore-style post-hardcore, soaring post-rock, melodic early 2000s-style emo, singer/songwriter-y indie rock, and more, and Oakhands have no trouble making it all sound cohesive. You can stream the full album below, and we’re also premiering the video for “La Jetée.” Here’s what the band tells us about that:
“La Jetée” deals with obsession – it’s inspired by the experimental French science fiction short film La Jetée, in which obsession makes the protagonist blind to his own death. In the song, blindness is used consistently as a metaphor for obsession, and at the same time as a consequence of obsession. The narrator deals with no one but himself, as the only perspective that matters is that of the narrator. He draws a picture of a romantic relationship, although it’s only about himself. The words and the melodies consist of romantic cliches – the words could stem from literally any love song. The relationship in the song is thus one sided, based on obsessions which obscure the narrator’s perspective and leads to his blindness (the metaphor and consequence of obsession). Making one’s perspective, one’s own feelings the only thing that counts is toxic masculinity and this is what the song calls out and criticizes.
The video takes a different approach to this perspective, focussing on human sight as a topic. Blindness is characterized by an unstructured but nevertheless emotional dance choreography. The camera and the viewer act as a dancing partners, following the blind dancer in the video closely. The viewers’ perspective constantly evolves throughout the video as they recognize the different formations that the band are playing. The musician’s glances are finally brought into the foreground in slow motion. And in between it all, the video allures to the other two layers of storytelling in the series by interposing its very own actors.
Check it out:
