Video premiere: Former Faces, ‘Foreign Nature’

Kevin Bronson on April 25th, 2018

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Someday soon, doctors might be prescribing the music of L.A. indie-rockers Former Faces to treat depression, or as a general motivational tool. If doctors don’t, then we will, right here: The band led by singer-songwriter Ryan Parmenter will release their debut full-length “Foreign Nature” later this year, and you could hardly feel a warmer embrace of echoing guitars, thrumming percussion and measured vocals. Former Faces’ music can be described as psychedelia, but it is not the psych-rock of drugs or escapism or fantasy. What’s available from the album so far (and from the quartet’s 2017 EP “Swimming in Circles”) seem musical tethers that pull you back to a beauty that was there all along.

“Foreign Nature’s” title track is a 5-minute pep talk with a vivid, detailed video (full-screen mode recommended) directed by Parmenter. “Do it / until you can’t,” Parmenter urges, later dismissing the notion that there is such a thing as an “ordinary life.”

“We felt like strangers in a strange land when writing ‘Foreign Nature,’” Parmenter explains. “The familiar had become unknown and the ground beneath us unstable. And yet the song’s creation was fluid and organic and its message became one of existential reassurance and positivity. The lyrics implore all those in pursuit of self-actualization to ‘Do it!’ with relentless vigor and no fear of failing.”

A release date for the album is expected to be announced soon.

||| Watch: The video for “Foreign Nature”