Boombox Blitz: Glimmermen game the system in ‘It’s Nice’ video

Welcome to Boombox Blitz, an artist spotlight series showcasing overlooked singers, songwriters and musicians who are quietly taking over the world.

Chart stats are chart stats are chat stats. They are always nice accents to flourishing artistic endeavors, but given the very slippery, slimy nature of the music business, they don’t really mean much these days. In the age of streaming consumption, and vinyl’s mega growth spurts, there are certainly ways to work around it – or game the system that is built against its creators to begin with. Dublin’s fuzzy indie-rock band Glimmermen – of Gav Cowley (guitar, vocals), J. Bassetti (bass), Phil Murray (drums), Dave Prendergast (trumpet) and Orlaith Gilcreest (saxophone, vocals) – lean into the cat and mouse extravaganza for their new music video, “It’s Nice,” which sees the five-piece fake sales numbers to bolster chart positions. It’s clever, cheeky and probably not far removed from the truth.

“It’s nice when people accept you for who you,” Cowley sings. He pokes the flames on the opening line, leaving an impression of feeling both jaded and insatiable for what’s next, and the guitars only croak in silky waves behind him. “And they’re unconcerned ’bout the bridge you burned / Or the cash you earned / On the day,” he continues to unfurl the emotional tethers, the string coming into play for a retaliatory swipe to the industry.

“It’s nice / To be belong to somebody or someone / Like a note in a song,” he later punctuates the story with a reminder of art’s importance. It all comes down to the music, and between the song’s gentle, tickling layers, there is an underlining resolve to soldier forward despite it all. The visual is richly steeped in a nostalgic amber light, perhaps hinting at the once vibrant gleam that smothered a now-tired and exhausting playing field. Courtesy of Trevor Murphy, who shot the four-minute romp, it never takes itself so seriously as to feel bitter or distasteful; the words are elevated in such a way to lean into the very silly sensibility.

“It’s Nice” buys into the forthcoming album’s stark complexities. “As alluded to in the [album] cover art, the stand taken is not necessarily on solid ground, as many things are at play and in flux,” the band writes in the video description, giving further context to this particular moment, “and themes draw parallels with life’s many dysfunctional communication platforms and the struggle to makes sense of things within and without.”

“It’s Nice” samples the band’s upcoming vinyl-only third album called Here I Stand, out everywhere this Friday (November 8).

Watch below:

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