Wednesday, January 24th, 2024 – In a touching nod to the recent natural turmoil in their homeland of New Zealand, rock powerhouse, Black Smoke Trigger, have dropped their latest single “Perfect Torture”. The single comes with a striking music video that beautifully parallels the emotional turbulence of the song with the band’s personal experience with Cyclone Gabrielle and the devastation it wreaked on their hometown of Hawke’s Bay. Stream the powerfully emotive track HERE and watch the music video HERE or by clicking the thumbnail below. “Perfect Torture really developed in the studio, with producer Nick Raskulinecz we experimented a lot to get the vibe right and I think we nailed it. The raw acoustic intro really allows space to show off Baldrick’s voice and the song really goes from 0 – 60 as it gets darker and reaches the first chorus where Baldrick completely unleashes. The song is about someone you love that just doesn’t make it easy, but in the end, you know it’s worth the fight to weather to storm, hence the line ‘Your love is perfect torture’. We really wanted this song to be a journey when you listen to it, and take you through different emotions, from the most calming & loving, to the complete opposite,” says guitarist and band leader Charlie Wallace. Creating a visual representation for “Perfect Torture” became more than a music video production – it turned into a labor of love and a tribute. The song’s thematic focus on emotional struggle is mirrored in the video’s stormy imagery, paying tribute to the resilience shown by those affected. “Perfect Torture” stands as a powerful metaphor for the trials and tribulations that challenge us, both in love and life. “After we had the concept and figured out how to pull it off, our director was having a hard time finding an art department who was going to create what we wanted, so we said, “screw it, let’s be the art department!”. So the band and our crew created the surreal hill you see in the video. All of the leaves, trees and real grass actually came from my house, my Dad drove it all up in a van to the studio in Auckland that we filmed it. We had just had a cyclone (Cyclone Gabrielle) that really devastated our hometown in Hawke’s Bay, so I drove down to the river to collect a bunch of stuff that had been washed up. This for us gave it a bigger meaning, as there were people who lost their homes, pets and even their lives in this cyclone. So having a music video showing a storm coming in and wreaking havoc, in a weird way, is a tribute to what people had to go through,” Wallace reflects on the creative process. |