It’s been an exciting year for the Brisbane-based, indie-pop-rock musician Jeremy Neale and he is back with his latest track, Everything I Do Is Replaced by Two
The success of his last album was indicated by him winning the Grant McLennan Fellowship, which awarded him the chance to travel to NY for 3 months and complete an NYU songwriting intensive course.
Fresh from this and seemingly ready to hit the ground running, his new album, titled We Were Trying To Make It Out is scheduled for a February 2020 release and we now have a new track from the Australian. Perhaps owing to these newly acquired skills stateside, this track has a slightly more edgy, mature and almost darker tone to some of his previous tracks.
Whereas you might find a much more consistent fast-paced, upbeat rhythm consistently in his previous offerings, this tracks veers in a slightly other direction. Whereby he slows it down, most notably in almost glum approach to his lyrical content which allows the listener to comprehend the darker undertones to what he is attempting to communicate- the loss of a period of time which has since been replaced in abundance and his struggle to keep up with it.
Fans of the more classic Jeremy Neal sound shouldn’t lament too much about the new direction, however. As during the chorus, the youthful exuberance that is found in many of his other tracks comes through in abundance as the tempo speeds up, it track takes a more triumphant turn in melody as Neale faces these new changes head-on.
The video though is much more true to form. You don’t have to look far back in his music repertoire to see a trend in his low-budget, do it yourself, performance-orientated videos. Often fun and composed with a light-hearted approach in nature, Everything I Do Is Replaced by Two follows this same sentiment, but offers a much more back-basics approach, opposed to his previous music videos which offered up various costume and make-up decisions.
During the upbeat choruses, the camera is haphazardly passed around from Neale to members the band singing joyously along to lyrics, seemingly in one long take which takes us on a 360-degree journey around the studio as the band perform. While during the more sombre verses, we are focused on Neale alone, he sings directly to the camera, addressing the viewer directly. A simple but very effective approach to music video creates the same visual aesthetic as to that which the track itself permeates, which demonstrates once again that less can often be more.
Ultimately, what this track seems to be about is the solemn loss of something old, which has been replaced by something new entirely, but the promise this new dawn brings for Neale. As such, the way this track is approached is in a similar vein to this, with Neale seemingly beckoning in a new approach to his tracks. Is it this coincidental, or is this track a veiled signal from Neale that his new album may be attempting to bring something new to the table? Well, with just over three months before the albums scheduled, we may not be waiting too long to find out.
Image Credit: Jez_BrunswickStudio
