The High Plains Drifters – ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’

The lyric video for ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’, the new single from NYC band The High Plains Drifters, focuses on an astronaut wandering around an abandoned space station. Although the song shares the title with the Rainbow rock song, and the name of the band sounds like they’d play country music, neither could be further from the truth – it’s a retro-synth pop track which harks back to the sounds of Erasure, Depeche Mode, and other classic UK electronic bands.

Perhaps this is because of the deadpan vocals of lead singer and songwriter, Larry Studnicky, whose voice works brilliantly with the quirky synth pop arrangements and melodies. Studnicky narrates his heartache over the loss of a relationship. He has been pretending it’s all okay, and the process has alienated him from the rest of the world. It’s fitting that the video therefore shows an astronaut, all alone, in space. If you’re going to be alienated from the rest of the world, then that’s just about the right way to go about it.

Juxtaposed in the footage of the astronaut in Lars Jørgen Sundnes Skaland’s clever lyric clip are tv screens, pretty girls, and lots of spacey effects, while flickering blue letters share the lyrics, and at the same time provide an idea of what’s going on in the mind of the spaceman. All alone with his powerful emotions, he futilely grasps for comfort in the memory of his girlfriend. Sadly, this too, like the space station he’s marooned on, recedes into the vastness of space.

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