VIDEO PREMIERE: Death Valley Dreams embrace Noir to ‘Feel This No More’ before Cold tour
After five years, Death Valley Dreams is feeling something again.
Based in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area, the indie/new wave/alternative rock band is back to release new music ahead of their return to the live stage – and their biggest tour yet.
Filmed by Chad Bonk and premiering today exclusively on NEPA Scene, the neon-bathed music video for the single “Feel This No More” finds the group gathering in Noir Dark Spirits to take in the type of moody, dimly lit ambience that only this gothic establishment could provide. Josh Balz, the owner of the Scranton bar as well as The Strange & Unusual Oddities Parlor, makes a cameo appearance as candles burning brightly in hollowed out skulls light their solemn faces.
Following the rerelease of their debut album “Lust in the Modern World” (remixed and remastered with four bonus songs) last September, the band started putting out new singles such as “Reckless Heart” and, just recently, “Feel This No More,” hinting at more to come after a period of silence.
“We’ve been writing the whole time, so we really didn’t take a total hiatus, just from playing shows, I guess,” vocalist/guitarist Nick Coyle acknowledged with a laugh.
“But in the fall of last year we just decided that we like the music too much to not let people hear it. This song is inspired, at least musically, by the dark moodiness of bands like Killing Joke, The Cure – the whole classic alternative scene, really.”
This is appropriate as DVD closes out the video basking in red lights shaped like the silhouette of The Cure frontman Robert Smith, wearing that ’80s influence on more than just their sleeves. They describe their style as a combination of “haunting guitar textures, infectious melodies, dark and thought-provoking lyrics, pulsing grooves, and almost nostalgic-sounding synth atmospheres,” a sound that “is familiar yet fresh and unique.”
One fan said, “It’s as if The Cars got David Bowie to sing and played something that could have been on ‘The Lost Boys’ soundtrack,” so if that seems like something you wouldn’t want to miss, the band is officially back next Saturday, Jan. 28 at Lovedraft’s Brewing Company in Mechanicsburg, another venue that fits right into their dark aesthetic. They will be opening for Jimmie’s Chicken Shack alongside Coal State, Jon Garcia & The Hopeless Romantics, Sugar Hysteria, and Benny Okay. Tickets are on sale now via Eventbrite.
While Death Valley Dreams has been relatively quiet until now, Coyle and guitarist Johnny Nova have been busy touring as members of Cold. When the gold-selling alternative rock band hits the road again in March to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their seminal album “Year of the Spider,” featuring hits like “Stupid Girl” and “Suffocate,” DVD will be opening many of those shows alongside Divide the Fall, Awake for Days, and Sygnal to Noise, backed by the new lineup seen in the “Feel This No More” video.
“We added Ryan Williams on keyboards and Jasper Joyner on drums, who we met on the last Cold tour. He was in Black Satellite, one of the openers,” Coyle noted.
He and Nova are looking forward to pulling double duty on the three-month tour of 54 shows playing “Year of the Spider” in its entirety with a special encore, and they’ve booked at least two major festivals this fall that have yet to be announced. If anyone thought Death Valley Dreams was dead after eight years, 2023 will certainly lay that notion to rest.
