With SPECTRES‘ new album Nostalgia released in March on Artoffact Records, the Vancouver post-punks have teamed up with CVLT Nation to premiere the music video for their song “When Possessed Pray.”
“When Possessed Pray” is a shimmering, melancholy rocker, evoking ’80s greats like New Order, Modern English, and The Chameleons.”
Asked about the song’s meaning, vocalist Brian Gustavson gave only this clue:
“If everything should fade, what will be left of us?”
The video was shot on location on the streets of the band’s hometown of Vancouver.
Founded in 2005 by vocalist Brian Gustavson, SPECTRES is commonly cited as one of the bands responsible for kicking off the renewed interest in the post-punk sound in Canada.
Inspired initially by the original UK anarcho-punk bands of the late ’70s and early ’80s, SPECTRES mixes the ethics of that scene with the stylings of post-punk and an incredible knack for writing catchy songs.
Guitarist Zac Batalden gives this statement, reflecting on the band’s 15-year career:
“This band has never been about trying to be in the right place at the right time. We basically started out of a pure interest in music and a desire to explore something creatively that basically none of our contemporaries were doing in the DIY punk scene at the time. We played for years on mismatched bills alongside crust, metal, and hardcore punk bands, booking our own shows, brokering our own deals with small scale labels, paying for everything out of our own pockets and working our way from sticking out like a sore thumb, to 15 years later being a respected band that in many ways helped jump start the interest in post punk music throughout the DIY music community and beyond. Throughout that time we’ve just tried to stay true to what we always set out to do in the first place: make music that is interesting to us, explore our own musical obsessions and connect with other like minded people through live music.”
