After flirting with darkwave amid New Order–esque new wave on their 2019 LP Time to Kill, electronic duo Body of Light recently returned with news of their follow-up project Bitter Reflection—a record which, based on its early singles, and in spite of its extremely darkwave album cover, leans into a lighter side of ’80s synth-pop. Never more so than on the record’s third single and title track, which puts the band ahead of the curve on what appears to be an imminent, earnest AOR revival.
The tender and emotive slow-jam ballad perfectly captures the stadium-sized soft-rock sound of the era, with the band even successfully recreating the imagery often paired with it for the official music video. “‘Bitter Reflection’ was the first song we recorded for the record, and we just knew we had to make a music video that showed how special it was to us,” they share of the clip, which features a prominent actor of cult films from the following decade: James Duval of The Doom Generation, SLC Punk!, and Go. “We had all these thoughts about nostalgia and reconnecting with our past selves, and Collin Fletcher was amazing at turning those ideas into a storyline that really worked. We couldn’t believe it when James Duval, one of our cinematic heroes, agreed to be in the video. James really got the vibe of the track and totally blew us away with his acting skills and the emotion he brought to set.”
Check out the video below, and you can pre-order Bitter Reflection here.
