Swedish post-rock stalwarts Oh Hiroshima release music video for latest single »Secret Youth«
Swedish post-rock duo Oh Hiroshima has released a music video for the second single »Secret Youth« taken from their upcoming full-length album, »All Things Shining«, due out on June 28th, 2024 via Pelagic Records.
Tracklist:
01. Wild Iris
02. Holiness Movement
03. Swans In A Field
04. Secret Youth
05. Rite of Passage
06. Deluge
07. Leave Us Behind
08. Memorabilia
Courtesy of Pelagic Records:
Slow burning Swedish post-rock outfit Oh Hiroshima have released »Secret Youth«, the latest single from their much-anticipated fifth full-length album, »All Things Shining«, due for release on the 28th June via Berlin’s Pelagic Records.
Now pared down to a brotherly core, »All Things Shining« sees Oh Hiroshima expand further into new sonic territory as they champion the power of wonder and awe in an age of faded youth and jaded disenchantment.
Founded over 15 years ago as a DIY post-rock recording project in Kristinehamn, Oh Hiroshima has steadily outgrown its Swedish hometown to become a highly regarded studio and live project within the international post-rock scene. With four diverse albums already to their name encompassing elements of shoegaze, electronica, post-punk and danceable indie-rock; Oh Hiroshima’s fifth full-length offering represents a significant evolution in the band’s songwriting and soundcraft, captured in its essence by the band’s friend, collaborator and co-producer, Magnus Linberg (Cult Of Luna).
Photo by Ellen Hemström and Oskar Nilsson
Latest single »Secret Youth« steers traditional song structure toward taut, krautrock urgency; echoing the eternal conflicts of action and inertia that resonate throughout the record. Exploring the ongoing power battle between youthful naive radicalism and the calculated reasoning that inevitably comes with adulthood, »Secret Youth« pits a pendulous, pulsing rhythm section against spiralling guitar work and plaintive vocals that ask difficult questions about purpose, meaning and the ambivalence of age.
The accompanying video amplifies this introspective struggle with the vernal potential of new seedlings unnaturally reversed through manipulation of archival footage as frontman Jakob Hemström climbs a windowless tower to nowhere, becoming increasingly tangled in the miles of microphone cable left in his wake. That the video ends on the band in their element though, performing the song together as a collection of worldly possessions are immolated around them, obliterates any vestige of the past and upends the trajectory of the future in order to to leave us all here and now, with nothing but the potential of the present.
Simultaneously personal and universal, »All Things Shining« is a sonic exploration of the duplicitous nature of ageing; the double edged sword of amassing life-affirming experiences that inevitably dim our perception of the world around us. However, as the album’s title suggests, Oh Hiroshima are adamant that all is not lost; with songs inspired by timeless works of literature pivotal for Jakob and his brother Oskar throughout their lives, »All Things Shining« is a reminder that, against all odds, the world will always find a way to reclaim its spark and mystique.
»All Things Shining« is released 28th June, 2024.
»Secret Youth« is out now.
Jakob Hemström on »Secret Youth«: “With a more traditional song structure and a more vocal-centric approach than most of our previous work, this was an interesting song for us to write and record. As with the previous single »Wild Iris«, the instant and the atmospheric walk side by side here. The lyrics deal with the naive radicalism of youth versus the distant reasoning of adulthood.”
Pre-order / stream / download here: orcd.co/ohhiroshima-ats
Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well