video premiere: "Silver Lake" - Altar Boy

words: Gordon Phillips

Apparently, the day before Valentine’s Day is called “Desperation Day,” for reasons that shouldn’t need explanation. With that backdrop, Altar Boy’s new single and music video for “Silver Lake,” released today, fits the occasion perfectly.

“And if you think that it’s alright, I think I’m gonna stay here tonight/I don’t care if we’re just friends or end up lovers/all I know is I’ve been worse and so have you,” sings a detached and forlorn Jake Doerr, surely echoing a sentiment shared by listeners everywhere who happen to be sitting out the year’s worst Hallmark holiday.  Clean electric guitars spiral and chime over a ride cymbal-fueled groove.  By the time the song’s second chorus drifts around, Doerr is willing to admit that “if you say that it’s alright, I think I’m gonna stay here tonight/cuz I don’t wanna be alone/I don’t wanna be alone.”

The Tristan Weaver-created music video for “Silver Lake” is a spliced compilation of vintage public domain romance movie footage, which distinctly captures the song’s affect. Happy couples kiss and dance while somebody drinks something out of a brown paper bag next to a chain-link fence—nothing is cliché when it’s in black and white.

Altar Boys are releasing their self-titled EP on March 3, 2018 via Pittsburgh, PA’s Crafted Sounds.