EMPRSS are back with a second track, video and gig dates to promise us a successful debut album later on this year.
Do you remember that melancholic young trio with the funny spelled name, which left us hanging last winter with only a teaser track Down to their debut album? Good news for those who have been patient. Emprss’s first album is due very shortly this spring!
Must be why the Farnham boys have released a new single called Blue to warm up the crowds’ passion. With an icy video and haunting vocals, the guys keep slowly revealing the tone of the album, still only tickling the imagination of their growing public.
Just in their mid-twenties, Allan, Leo and Johnny, already have an EP and one video behind them. With Australian mastermind producer Flume behind them, the lads gigged in the UK and France last year along with an alike electro-indie band, Hundred Waters. This year they have even bigger plans in store. According to Biz 3 Publicity, in several days Empress will be debuting in the United Stated at SXSQ and then match their successful streak with an accordingly grand show in Dirty Laundry, which is currently one of LA’s most popular venues.
Just like in their previous track, Emprss have melted pop, dance and r&b and molded some exquisite vocals accompanied by a subtle piano party, which frames the single, turning it into instrumental fluid: timidly giving way to front man, Ralph Allan’s lyrics to shine through and then quickly engulfing them back into the sea of emotions they represent.
Once again, the context of the track explores physical and philosophical escapisms. To refresh your memory, Ralph stated on their previous track Down that “is basically about feeling like you’re suddenly out of your element and unable to trust anyone, even those who are closest to you. It’s about loneliness (in spite of being surrounded by people), it’s about paranoia…”
On this note, Blue’s video turns into a very minimal yet rather impressive statement of the psychology behind the tracks and the album. A doubled up world of the mind and the body is translated into one’s long journey through the winter scene of South England, culminating into the meeting of the two elements in an electrifying “through the looking glass” scene.
The vast talent of the boys spread to directing the video singlehandedly in the Bourne Woods near their hometown down South, reflecting on “wistful England winters of back home and the Stanley Kubrick films, Portishead and My Bloody Valentine music that the band ingested as teenagers”. The powerful footage and brilliant editing of the frost covered forest is opposed to the pristine empty environment of the alter ego, where the protagonist resides, almost hiding from their second half: the breathtaking video almost detracts the attention of the song, turning it into its soundtrack rather than the other way around.
However, the second track, which is supported by its own EP and three other songs, and the events and gigs Emprss have planned raises a high bar for their upcoming album; an exploration of psychology, pushing the limits of electro music, blending pop, dance and RnB to leave us onto another cliff-hanger for a little longer.
Take a listen to the EP and download for free via their SoundCloud page.
Words @ruhanzi
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