Kevin Bronson on July 1st, 2014

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Gabrielle Wortman and Jason Rosen – the L.A.-based duo known as Smoke Season – stage their sultry, mysterious single “Badlands” in a forlorn desert outpost in the lush new video for the song. Directed by Scott Fleishman and produced by APLUSFILMZ, “Badlands” finds our protagonists wrestling with their demons in Joshua Tree National Park – somebody gets hurt here, though the tale is a lot less bloody than most Westerns. The song, the centerpiece of the duo’s “Hot Coals | Cold Souls EP” (due July 29), is carried by Wortman’s vocals, the kind you can hear two canyons away. As with the tunes on last year’s debut EP, Smoke Season’s flair for the cinematic is distinctive, even when the “feature film,” as it is here, is only about four minutes long.

||| Live: Smoke Season plays Aug. 4 and 18 at the Echoplex.

||| Previously: “Badlands,” “Soleil”