It kicks off with the misadventures of a hungover caveman in prehistoric France and ends somewhere in the dregs of a dystopian Bob Seger fever dream. In between, there’s nearly 10 minutes of anger, absurdity and existential fatigue. Welcome to “The Song To End It All,” the sprawling closing track from Dreamers Of The Golden Dream (Vol. 1) (Vfib).
Tracked at the Woods Recording Studio near Woodstock, N.Y., Two Dark Birds’ fifth album balances complex arrangements and exploratory impulses with frontmen Steve Koester’s gift for melody and narrative. The Catskills-based band has been active for almost two decades, building on Koester’s earlier output with his self-named band, Punchdrunk and Maplewood. And even in the context of his earlier work, he acknowledges that Two Dark Birds’ “The Song To End It All” is “a bit of an epic.”
“Over the course of 10 minutes, it aims to capture the general (dis)spirit of these times,” he says.
Helping Koester make visual sense of that ambitious undertaking is acclaimed music photographer and filmmaker Sam Erickson, whose credits include documentaries on Jeff Buckley and Kris Kristofferson, along with Okonokos, the celebrated My Morning Jacket concert film. Erickson takes the song’s apocalyptic inclinations into the woods—literally.
“Sam’s video is a hazy, dreamlike interpretation featuring your average American primate as the central figure taking you through the song and his day,” says Koester. “Make America Ape Again?”
We’re proud to premiere Two Dark Birds’ “The Song To End It All” video. Dreamers Of The Golden Dream (Vol. 1) is out now.
—Hobart Rowland
