For those not in the know, Nothing But Thieves are an officially-very-good-according-to-us-and-many-others-including-Breaking-Bad’s-RJ-Mitte band that hail from Southend-on-Sea and released their self-titled debut in 2015 which hit number seven on the UK album chart. I grew up near Southend and it was bloody brilliant – if you haven’t been to Peter Pan’s Playground or the Three Shells for some fish and chips then, honestly, you haven’t lived. It also has the longest pleasure pier in the world which is a mighty 1.34 miles in length. Last time I walked along it it was very windy and I thought I was going to end up in the sea. It was February to be fair.
Anyway – let’s get back to the music, specifically the brand new video from the aforementioned Nothing But Thieves, which we are delighted to be premiering right here on ShortList.com. It’s called ‘Amsterdam’ (we’ve been there too but we are not going to bore you twice in one article), is the first taste of their upcoming second record Broken Machine, and is a brilliant piece of turbocharged indie-punk-rock excellence, with singer Conor Mason’s vocals on particularly fine form.
Guitarist Joe Langridge-Brown spoke to us about the track, saying:
“’Amsterdam’ is about the the oddities of modern life. It's about people who don't know how to interact anymore. It's about seeing the guy at the back of the room watching us play through someone's iPhone two places in front of him. We wanted a video that visually represented this feeling of frustration and thought the horde of dancers, writhing with energy did this beautifully. It's nice to put a unified spin on the song.”
And the video? It was shot in an industrial warehouse in Kiev, Ukraine; we haven’t been to Kiev so we have no stories about it, which means it’s an opportune moment to watch the video while we shut up. Enjoy:
