Melbourne-based band Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever share the third single off their sophomore record, Sideways to New Italy, out June 5 on Sub Pop. The song, “Falling Thunder,” is accompanied by a music video shot by friend of the band Jamieson Moore, composed of iPhone vacation footage she took while on vacation in Sicily, Sardinia and the Aeolian Islands.
“Our friend Jamieson Moore shot the footage of Sicily, Sardinia and the Aeolian Islands on her phone while on vacation last year,” says frontman Tom Russo in a statement. “The Aeolian Islands is also where my and [bassist] Joe Russo’s ancestors are from. We were also planning to shoot the band playing in Eolian Hall in Melbourne (it’s a community hall founded by Aeolian immigrants). We got some practice footage but by the time it came to shoot the band, we were on lockdown. So it’s turned out as a kind of a love letter to a particular place.”
Sideways to New Italy follows the band’s 2018 debut album Hope Downs. So far, the band has shared the singles “She’s There,” “Cars in Space” and now “Falling Thunder” from the forthcoming album.
According to Russo, Sideways to New Italy is “about pushing on through the relentless march of time, against the constant cycle of seasons. And the way people change and relationships change. It’s set in that time when autumn is turning into winter and the trees are getting bare.”
The eponymous New Italy is actually a small Australian village near New South Wales’ Northern Rivers, home to a mere 200 residents. It essentially serves as a testament to Italian culture in Australia—founded by Venitian immigrants in the late 1800s—with replicas of Roman-inspired statues littered across the verdant landscape.
“These are the expressions of people trying to find home somewhere alien; trying to create utopia in a turbulent and imperfect world,” continued Russo.
Watch the music video for Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s “Falling Thunder” below, and pre-order the album from Sub Pop here.
