The Regrettes Tackle Insecurity in Playful ‘Anxieties (Out of Time)’ Video
The Regrettes aren’t afraid to use their unique brand of emotive pop to address uncomfortable issues, whether it’s the sadness associated with unrequited love or the existential feelings brought on by isolation. On new single “Anxieties (Out of Time),” from the forthcoming album Further Joy, the Los Angeles band dives deeper into self-reflective mode with an ebullient song examining the complexities and frustrations of insecurity. It’s a theme that permeates much of the group’s latest output.
“Anxieties (Out of Time),” like many of the tracks featured on Further Joy, was written during the early days of the pandemic. “It encapsulates that impending doom, when it felt like everything in front of me was terrifying,” frontwoman Lydia Night said in a statement. “I think a lot of people experienced similar feelings at the beginning of the world shutting down. The chorus is a reflection of that. We wanted it to sound like an anxious, panic-attack pace like you’re running out of time and it feels like that to me.”
The single’s video, directed by Raúl Gonzo, finds the band trapped in a campy technicolor dreamland filled with geometric, oversized furniture interspersed with footage of Night fretting about her appearance. She pulls at her skin in a funhouse mirror, recoils at camera flashes during a photo shoot, and alters her appearance in a Mac OS-inspired photo editing program.
“‘Anxieties’ was a very personal and vulnerable piece for the Regrettes,” Gonzo said of the video. “The band shared some personal feelings that translated into the concept and I think we managed to walk the line in a way that exposes some of their inner feelings… I also thought the more angular things were, the more confrontational it felt.”
Further Joy, out April 8 on Warner, marks the band’s first full-length release since 2019’s How Do You Love?. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Night discussed the concept behind the album’s central themes, explaining that Further Joy “encapsulates this idea of chasing this imaginary, perfect joy and never being able to catch it — and that’s the thing that kind of keeps you stuck in your head and keeps you in this kind of self-torture.”
Night told Rolling Stone that learning to acknowledge and confront the stresses of emotional upheaval was a group effort during the Further Joy recording process. “With this album, it feels kind of full circle, because our first album was called, Feel Your Feelings, Fool — and I think that that sort of band ethos hasn’t changed with every album that we’ve put out. This just feels like a more mature version of that,” she said. “A lot of this album was like us getting closer as a band and like writing from a place where we were all bonding over these similar themes. And I hope that people can hear that in the music and feel like they’re a part of that with us.”
