TOPS – “Colder & Closer”

TOPS – “Colder & Closer”

Next month, the dreamy Montreal pop group TOPS will follow up their 2017 LP Sugar At The Gate with a new one called I Feel Alive. The new album is the first since the addition of TOPS’ newest member, keybardist Marta Cikojevic. They’ve already shared the title track and “Witching Hour.” Today, they’ve followed those up with a video for the new track “Colder & Closer.”

“Colder & Closer” has some of the clinical sheen of ’80s sythpop, but it’s also a tricky, paranoid song about the way past affairs can stick with you in ghostly ways. Frontwoman Jane Penney’s vocals are sharp and icy, but her lyrics are borderline Hitchcockian: “Tripping out the bedroom/ Double check the door is locked/ Someone out to get you/ Stranger living in your thoughts.”

Director Mashie Alam’s video builds on that same sense of disquiet. Penney, the video’s sole star, spends the entire clip singing directly into the camera, sometimes made up like an office worker in an ’80s thriller. But the camera keeps flipping to Predator-esque infra-red vision, which makes the whole thing seem otherworldly. There are some other strange twists, too. Check it out below.

I Feel Alive is out 4/3 via Musique TOPS. Pre-order it here.

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