In an effort to keep us scrambling, ECMA award-winning band Hillsburn snuck out their newest video this morning. ‘Sun Ought To Shine (Live)’ is the second video to be released from their upcoming album, and a pretty solid representation of what it’s like to hear them in person.
Hillsburn is a band we’ve been talking up for a while. They’ve consistently blown us away. Their debut album ‘In The Battle Years’ was easily our favourite release of 2016, with their song ‘Shout’ making our list of Best Music of 2016. They also recently made our list of favourite showcases from the 2017 East Coast Music Awards where they also took home the Fans’ Choice Video Of The Year Award for ‘Run Down’.
Following the success of ‘In The Battle Years’ they did a couple things. First, they added Clare Macdonald on drums. For all the clapping and stomping, fun and excitement, we barely noticed they’d skipped that bit on their debut. It meant adapting their sound somewhat for a quintet for a fuller more modern sound. They began engineering themselves with songwriter Paul Aarntzen taking the wheel there. Releasing their first single ‘Low Light’ confirmed they can do anything they want.
They also started a Kickstarter campaign to help pay for the recording of their upcoming album. They shattered their goal of $3,000 inside of 48 hours, and have since doubled that amount.
So now we get to see the fruit of their efforts. ‘Sun Ought To Shine’ is a live one-take version of their new song with the band serenading a lightbulb. The song, as penned by wearer-of-many-hats Aartzen, seems to tell of the constant companion that feeling of an unrequited love can become. It being better to have loved and letting it gnaw at you, than never to have loved at all. We’re guessing, but at least it would fit a theme after their video for ‘Low Light’, also produced by Aartzen.
It might be a simple video (or as simple as a one-take gets, you just try pulling that off. Kudos, Mat Barkley) but the band give such an evocative performance for all that simplicity it’s easy to see why they’re getting standing ovations.