Video: Velvet Starlings, ‘Back of the Train’

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Velvet Starlings (Photo by Skyler Barberio)

Christian Gisborne just turned 18, but the singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has already led his garage-rock outfit Velvet Starlings through two long EPs, both vessels for all things Sixties.

With the new single “Back of the Train,” out today, Velvet Starlings announce their graduation to a full-length: Their debut album, “Technicolour Shakedown,” will be out Aug. 27.

If Velvet Starlings’ EPs didn’t come on your radar, the riffy, raucous “Back of the Train” is a sharp introduction to a teenager who as a young lad was deep-diving into the catalogs of rock greats and appropriating his British dad’s musical gear to learn play the songs. “‘Back Of The Train’ centers around a sneaky low-note ’60s guitar riff and drums so over-compressed it would make the Sonics cringe,” Gisborne says. “I think it’s awful in the best way possible.”

He adds: “The song is about struggling as a musician while taking nothing for granted … paying dues and making sacrifices, while making sure to enjoy the ride along the way.”

The single’s marvelously madcap video, directed by Megan Blanchard, co-stars Gisborne’s bandmates Foster and Hudson Poling.

The teenager wrote, produced, engineered and mixed the album himself. “In the doom and gloom of COVID, I found myself reminiscing all the time about the days when we would wait in line for hours to see our favorite bands,” Gisborne says. “The songs on the first album reflect everything I felt I was missing out on.”

||| Watch: The video for “Back of the Train”

||| Previously: “Karmic Lemonade,” “Kids in Droves,” “If Life Ain’t Getting You High”