While many of us are still trying to wrap our heads around the fact that 2023 will be over in less than a month, Montreal-based neo-psych outfit Elephant Stone are doing their part to make 2024 a year to look forward to. Back in October, the group announced that their sixth LP as a unit, Back Into the Dream, would arrive on February 23. With a slew of singles made available prior to and since then, today the band is sharing the album’s brief, reflective closing track, “Another Year Gone,” which pairs rueful, dissociative lyrics with a jauntily vintage sunshine-pop instrumental.
“The COVID-19 pandemic often felt like a surreal, endless loop, reminiscent of Groundhog Day—each day waking up to the same reality, marked by uncertainty and stasis,” the band’s vocalist Rishi Dhir shares of the track from what will be their first LP since COVID hit. “In this repetitive existence, it was easy to become untethered, adrift in thoughts while feeling emotionally and physically suspended. ‘Another Year Gone’ is an anthem for these disorienting times. It’s a narrative of contrasts—between those grappling with stress, fear, and economic hardship, and those who profited from the chaos. Above all, this song is a musical embrace, a reassurance to hold close the ones you love and to tell them that, despite the world’s turmoil, everything will be OK.”
To deepen those contrasts, the heavy themes in the lyrics are paired with a music video directed by Laurine Jousserand that depicts Dhir as some sort of mod Wonka figure as he leads his reverently anachronistic band through the two-minute number’s bubblegum vocal harmonies. Check it out below, and stream the track here.
