Opening with a dead pan spoken word delivery and some anxious keys, the new single from The Queen’s Head, Today, is created as a suicide note for radio. It is something the band’s Joel Douglass describes as, ‘Well intended, but sharply manipulative’.
Bringing together sharp drums, glimmering disco touches and the angular structures of post-punk, The Queen’s Head create music in a melting pot of cultural touchstones. The video for Today, filmed by the band, edited by band member Tom Butler, and produced by Joel together with Andy Savours, beams a succession of images from working-class Britain into your eyeballs. For me, it draws on a similar feel of the arch artistry meets authenticity of Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting. Glimpses of Margate, and a sign, reading ‘For your pleasure & leisure’, even seeming to evoke Trainspotting’s Spud, whose crisp, almost textural interview line, ‘it’s like, my pleasure in other people’s leisure’ sublets a small heroin-filled studio flat in my brain. Describing the video, which itself forces a re-edit of the song, Tom says:
'I think we achieved the brief I set out, a video melancholic by its form and befitting of Today. My character reminisces about a seaside trip with Joel, seen through a dreamy montage of friendship captured on camcorder. In the present, in an apartment stressed in the brown and orange austerity of the 70s, my character sits in contemplation, haunted by a Joel-shaped figure, stark by its relative fidelity. A story of heartbreak and betrayal is revealed, exploring basic tension of the song — the disjunct between a loving friendship and a darker reality.’
There is a sad desperation thrumming through Today, as the vocals reach out for some sort of connection. I’m generally opposed to heavy processed vocals, but the treatment here on Today’s chorus is perfect, layered, and pitched in a way that evokes the cracking emotions of someone unable to hold their feelings any more. It paves the way for the spilt cacophony of the song’s bridge, where spoken words accelerate, slamming like fists into soft furnishings, walls, and television sets. This happens as synths swirl and dance, chaos unfurling in our minds, desperation, depression, love and hurt all smashed together in conflict.
The Queen’s Head are led by two frontmen, Joel, who also plays guitar, and Tom, who also plays bass. Today was inspired by a real-world letter Tom wrote to Joel, concerning Joel’s depression, entitled To a Fallen Friend. Joel describes the letter, saying “In it I detailed the sense of betrayal I felt at the hands of his depression, and the selfish act of withdrawal which is so often a symptom of that terrible disease”.
Today is out now, and represents the apex of the band’s forthcoming Titanic EP, due on 8 July.