This Montreal Band's Eerie New Music Video Embodies How We've All Felt This Past Year

The ongoing pandemic continues to leave many of us feeling like we're surrounded by negativity everywhere we turn.

Montreal-based band Po Lazarus' new song "Violent Times" encapsulates a certain numbness the majority of us have been forced to feel during the past year.

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"Violent Times" was recorded at the Tragically Hip's Bathouse Studio by the Hip's longtime producer Mark Vreeken the year before the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

Now, Joshua Carey, frontman of Po Lazarus, says "the lyrics have only grown more true with time."

"The song lyrics [themselves] relate to the desensitization and numbness that we feel towards the overwhelming and pessimistic news cycle," he told MTL Blog in an interview.

"We're constantly bombarded with news of violence and chaos and death. This bombardment makes us more unattached to the monstrosities of the world than it does make us empathetic to them."

The music video for the new single, which was filmed and directed by Montrealer Jordano Aguzzi, is a "homage to horror and slasher films."

Carey said, "the torture by guitar scene is kind of what it feels like for independent artists to get people to listen to their music."

As for what's next for Po Lazarus, "Violent Times" is part of a three-song EP, titled Despair, Too, that they'll be releasing in the spring.

Their second album Living in the Light is in the works as well.

The band also plans to release more music videos and live streams in the coming months, so make sure to keep an eye out for them!