The Fat Angel Sings

British four-piece Glass Animals are releasing a new album, Dreamland, on August 7th via Republic. This week they shared another song from it, “Heat Waves,” via a video partially filmed on phones by neighbours of frontman Dave Bayley during the pandemic lockdown. Colin Reed directed the video and it features Bayley walking down an East London street pulling a wagon featuring AV equipment, while being filmed by neighbours from inside their homes.

Bayley had this to say about the video in a press release: “The ‘Heat Waves’ video is a love letter to live music and the culture and togetherness surrounding it. It was filmed at the peak of the lockdown in my neighbourhood in East London by the lovely people who live around me, just using their phones. These are people who are usually out at shows, in galleries, going to cinemas, etc. These venues are left empty now, and many of them will not survive. The song is about loss and longing, and ultimately realizing you are unable to save something…and this video is about that but for art, being together and human contact. Huge love and thank you’s to everyone who got involved and helped out. When everyone was leaning out of their windows filming, I felt that same sense of togetherness and spine-tingling energy that happened at live shows. It made the coldness of performing to an empty room with the band stuck on screens feel even more heart-breaking.”

Previously the band shared the album’s first single, title track “Dreamland,” via a video made by Bayley while under quarantine via instructions from director Colin Read. The album also includes “Your Love (Déjà vu),” a new song the band shared in February.

Dreamland is the follow-up to 2016’s How to Be a Human Being. It’s the band’s first album since drummer Joe Seaward was hit by a truck while cycling in Dublin in 2018, forcing them to cancel their remaining tour dates that year. The band also features guitarist/keyboardist Drew MacFarlane and bassist/keyboardist Ed Irwin-Singer.