Artist:
BLOWING TREES
Label:
GLASSNOTE ENT. GROUP
Video:
“GOBLINS”
Director:
Ryan Scheer
Add Date:
March 10, 2010

Greetings programming friends, it’s Andy Gesner from HIP Video Promo, getting you ready for South By Southwest with a brand new clip from one of San Antonio’s finest young rock bands. Every frame in Blowing Trees’s crisply-shot video for “Goblins” is an celebration of light. Illumination streams into the dark room in which the band plays, dancing between slats of a corrugated back wall and shoots from the faces of broken television monitors on the floor. Light slashes into the corridor where guitarist Edwin Jered Stevens strums, and pours into the small metal elevator-like structure that (barely!) contains drummer Drew Pierce. An incandescent bulb swings through the performance area, and the silhouette of bassist Roy Scavone dances in front of it. Chris Madden often seems to be singing from the heart of a small-scale supernova.

It’s a good metaphor for the band. Matt Pinfield called the Blowing Trees sound “majestic and massive”, and nobody who has ever heard the group in action would ever dispute the claim. Their performances are an explosion of sound and energy, and the quartet’s growing reputation as creative, challenging live performers is well-earned. Their self-titled debut — produced by Southwestern music legend David Castell — is a multifaceted set incorporating elements of two-fisted modern rock, radio-friendly guitar pop, old-school and second-wave prog, thoughtful metal, experimental recordings, and even a little Texas folk. The set won the band merited comparisons to Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, and even latter-day Pink Floyd, but Chris Madden possesses an acrobatic, elastic vocal style that won’t be mistaken for anybody else’s.

He puts his flexibility to glorious use on the dramatic “Goblins”, the band’s latest — and catchiest — single. The verse is an intimate whisper, and the chorus is a high, soaring dream; the effortlessness with which Madden switches from one mode to the other is nothing short of remarkable. Madden does it all over a bedrock of roaring guitar and pounding drums, and the melody he commits to record is the most sparkling he’s ever penned. Roof-shaking, bright, and boldly-performed, “Goblins” sounds to our ears like a legitimate modern rock hit.

The song is a concert standout, and has become a favorite among Blowing Trees’s devoted fanbase. The “Goblins” video suggests just how much heat and intensity the quartet can deliver during a gig: they play with controlled abandon, utterly possessed by the music they’re making. Austin-based Lucky Rabbit Films (Kalu James, The Come Latelies) pairs the band with subtly striking visuals. Their flashing lights, spots, and beams transform a backdrop of truck cargo containers into something strangely mystical. Everything in the clip radiates light: the walls, the small trees brought in to decorate the set, Madden’s acoustic guitar. In one arresting shot, Madden swings a lightbulb attached to a wire in a darkened room, It’s reminiscent of Oasis’s landmark clip for “Live Forever”, and it has a similar effect: the singer’s face seems to be dynamic, iconic, a study in contrasts, a play of light and shadow.

We’re very psyched to be working once again on the Blowing Trees team and are here to help you out in any way you need. If you need more info, call Andy Gesner at 732-613-1779 or e-mail us at info@HIPVideoPromo.com. You can also visit Facebook or www.GlassnoteMusic.com to find out more about Blowing Trees.

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For info about Blowing Trees’s previous video “The Day The World Left Me”, click HERE