Were they a little less brave, the aesthetic proposition of Empire of the Sun could so easily have been two dudes in jeans, shirts and trainers making festival-ready dance pop. But they’re not, clearly, and that at the very least is interesting.
In the pair’s exotic but familiar new video for “Alive” taken from their forthcoming new album “Ice On The Dune”, pals Nick Littlemore and Luke Steele persist with the fantastically visual language they’d established in their first clip. That means desert scenes. That means a decent millinery budget. That means dressing like warlocks. That means super earnest power fists. That means CGI energy balls. That means about a dozen other things that 99% of the bands on earth couldn’t get away with.
“We recorded it between Santa Monica and Nick’s studio in New York,” Steele says of the track. “Musically, it’s a bit of a weird one. The tempo changes all the time. Sometimes the tempo is really quick, and at others it’s slower. It sucks you in. Like quicksand.”
“Sheer joy and exaltation,” Littlemore adds. “The line: ‘Loving every minute because you make me feel so alive” is almost like an old copywriting by-line, but if the delivery is right it can sum up so much. There’s an emotional intensity to it everyone can relate to.”
‘Ice on the Dune’ is due for release June 2013.
