See Harmony-Rich Band Darlingside’s New Animated Video for ‘Futures’

Like a church choir staring down the apocalypse, Darlingside sing about the modern world’s iffy future – including political unrest and nuclear fallout — on the Massachusetts band’s anxious, harmony-heavy Extralife. The new album arrives February 23rd, with the lead single “Futures” kicking things off on a cautiously optimistic note.

“‘Futures,’ to me, is about taking our collective dread for what’s to come and turning what could be a helpless feeling into a call to action, however insignificant that action might feel at the time,” says Don Mitchell, who shares vocal duties with bandmates Auyon Mukharji, Harris Paseltiner and David Senft. “It’s about steering hard away from the worst of those futures, which feel closer to us now than ever, and actively setting up better ones in their place.”

With its Nick Drake-worthy guitar arpeggios and cinematic chorus, “Futures” feels both fresh and familiar, like some throwback piece of orchestral folk-pop recently removed from the vault. The song’s animated music video strikes a similar balance. Directed by Keith Boynton, it follows a time traveler’s attempts to reset the balance of the world.

“In some ways, it’s my job as the director to misinterpret the content of the song, because if I interpret it correctly, I’ll end up making something that’s redundant with the song itself,” Boynton explains. “In this case, I think I drew my primary inspiration from the chorus. Once you introduce the notion of time travel, you’re kind of pushing the concept of ‘never too late’ to its logical extreme – and extremes are always a lot of fun to play with.”

Darlingside will launch a U.S. tour in March, beginning March 8th at the Echo in Los Angeles.