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Froth's Joyless Slog Toward Hope

A new video from director Riley Blakeway and the Los Angeles-based shoegaze band Froth finds plainspoken poetry and inspiration in life's most mundane moments. The short film, for the song "Nothing Baby," follows a 20-something as he slogs through seemingly joyless days, smoking cigarettes on the toilet, playing video games and delivering pizzas to dismissive customers of better means.

"Oh there's nothing baby I can give to you," sings frontman Joo-Joo Ashworth, just before offering an impassive plea for her to stay. "Put back all your clothes, everybody knows."

The disheveled lead in Froth's video is played with a perfectly blank, unchanging stare by the band's drummer, Cameron Allen. He's an Everyman whose only friend is a solitary goldfish. And while there's no promise of redemption in this tale, there is possibility.

Near the end of this despondent vignette, Allen begins to commit small acts of rebellion. He sets his goldfish free, eats pepperoni off a pizza he's delivering, then bikes down a dingy tunnel with the wind in his hair. He may not be entirely free. But he's getting there.

"The video is 98% autobiographical for (our drummer) Cameron," the band tells us in an email. "That's his job in Hollywood and his car was stolen earlier this year so he's delivering pizzas on a bike or a skateboard all the time. The whole video is pretty much a regular day in his life."

"Nothing Baby" is from Froth's second full-length album, Bleak, released earlier this year on Burger Records.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Robin Hilton is a producer and co-host of the popular NPR Music show All Songs Considered.