A hope that things will be better next year. I’m sure that’s something we’ve all been feeling the last few years, right? That’s the sentiment at the heart of Tidal Wave‘s latest single, “Next Year”. At a deeper level, the song is about “not knowing who you are in your early 20’s. Questioning your decisions, freezing up, not making things happen for yourself – instead just hoping for next year to be better”. And the seven-piece, Toronto-based art rock band has created a video to bring this message to life.
The track, built upon an expansive, celestial soundscape of layered guitars and synths, opens with airy vocals singing “Next year, this will be done. Next year, I know where I’ll be from”, but with more hope than certainty in the lyrics. Visually, the track juxtaposes scenes across time of the singer/narrator of the song as a young man, dealing with the tribulations of youth, and as an old man living with the life he’s had.
The track’s melancholy string section perfectly soundtracks shots of the older man staring into the void with listless eyes. The mood changes during the last third of the song, with the orchestration building into something joyful, and with this change, the imagery flips and focuses on the joys where there once was a sense of aimlessness and misery. Both in the past and future, we see our protagonist embrace life, closing out the video with a sense of elation for what’s to come.
Watch the video above and stream the track here.
