The Burning Hell have released their newest video today: ‘Friend Army’ in which we find the band in their natural habitat of far off lands, doing their habitual selves in their slightly oddballish and yet socially acceptable way. Oh, and they’re also trying to recruit you into the army.
Yeah, that’s a bit of a stretch, but hear them out. Songwriter Mathias Kom has spun wilder yarns for us before, and we’re none the worse for them. All you need is to accept is the simple premise that we all like having friends, and let everything else fall into place. If that argument isn’t sound enough for you, at least given them a chance to convince you in their mildly uncomfortable looking uphill footrace training video. How bad can it be?
‘Friend Army’ is also the newest single from their upcoming album ‘Revival Beach’, which seems to be a revival of sorts, but also slimming back the number of friends in The Burning Hell army. The band are down from a full quintet to a conspicuous trio. It’s less of an army and more a splinter cell. Ariel Sharratt is holding down the fort on drums and bass clarinet, while Darren Browne mans the bass and bouzouki, and Mathias Kom may as well be a one-man army handling all the guitars – a guitarmy. Presumably they’re running lean these days as they tour about in their off-white pantalooned uniforms, conquering Scotland and beyond one hill at a time.
It’s not the most appealing recruitment video ever – not with all the running, the hills, and the inevitable linen-induced chafe. Still, they leave us with no conceivable argument not to like everything else. After all, we like the song, so logically we’ll agree with whatever else they put in the album.
‘Revival Beach’ is out October 21st,2 017 on vinyl and cd via BB*Island. Presumably until then you’ll have to catch the band running around far off lands, or sporadically vacationing on the East Coast.