How It Ended For The Drums

By Sacha Stephan / October 7th, 2011 in Music / Brooklyn / 239 views

Brooklyn-based alternative outfit The Drums have just released the clip for their latest tune How it Ended, the appropriately-named closer for their latest album ‘Portamento’. The clip rolls like a nostalgia-laced journey through the remnants of a broken relationship, with your tour guide—and front-man of the band—Jonathan Pierce. Wandering the streets of London, Pierce’s face speaks volumes of distress and longing, and through the minor inclusion of lip-synching the chorus of the song—“I don’t know how it ended/I don’t know where you went to/I’ll always be right here”—the heartbreak and dejection of the song is really hit home.

The Drums are no strangers to experimental video techniques; their recent project Visiomento shows the boys perform live versions of the tracks from ‘Portamento’, filmed using CCTV-style methods in all of their voyeuristic glory. The Patrick Roberts-directed clip for How it Ended follows this same semi-experimental pattern, with its use of an almost canvas-painting quality to the images’ texture in order to signify a certain longing for the past. The colors are all within a similar hue, which according to Roberts was “in order to heighten the sense and theme of memory”. The end product is an intimate exploration of the pain of an old wound.

Portamento is out now through Frenchkiss (US) and Island Records/Moshi Moshi (UK).