Kevin Bronson on June 7th, 2023

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Night Talks’ new single, the aptly titled “Roll On,” plows through doubt and depression as if they were mere mud puddles. It’s the L.A. indie trio’s first music since their full-length “Same Time Tomorrow,” released in early 2022 after it sat on the shelf for over a year (thanks, pandemic).

The very beat of “Roll On,” if not its cheery chorus, puts a happy face on all that. “It was a really tough time to be an independent musician with no real infrastructure, especially when looking at other, more successful acts, who were still able to release albums and play on late-night television,” says frontwoman Soraya Sebghati who’s backed by Jacob Butler and Josh Arteaga in Night Talks. “The only thing we could do was work on writing songs and other small projects, and that’s exactly what this song came out of. We wanted to capture the feeling of what it literally feels like to be stuck inside your apartment, unable to do much of anything.”

As for the video, that’s where “Roll On” gets weird.

Director Julianne Fox, seemingly taking cues from “The Twilight Zone,” places Sebghati in a house with a life of its own. “We wanted to craft a vintage, liminal environment for Soraya’s character to run around in,” says Fox, “and we had a lot of fun playing with the mysteriously ominous elements of the setting.” Adds Butler: “Our goal was to cram as much color and energy as possible into the smallest, dustiest space we could find.”

||| Watch: The video for “Roll On”

||| Live: Night Talks are playing Midway Wednesday at Harvard & Stone tonight (co-presented by Buzzbands.LA and Fernet Branca), with Izzy Outerspace and Rilo Wye opening. The show is free (21+).

||| Previously: “Same Time Tomorrow,” live at the Troubadour, “On and On,” “Overcome,” “Cutting Through,” “Jungle,” “Green” video, “Green”