Cold Heaven Unveil a JG Ballard-like Ghost Story in their Phantasmagorical Video for “Channels”

Cold Heaven premieres a phantasmagorical new music video for the song Channels, from the forthcoming full-length album Unraveled.

The Channels clip, directed by Steve Leach, offers a dreamlike vision of the mundane: there are ghosts that haunt the corners of everyday life, and the band finds triumphant solace through the acceptance of these spectral guests. “Channels is a hypnotic song,” says singer/bassist/songwriter Mitchell Flanagan. “It recognizes we are lost but we can be found. Like a Mark Fisher essay with ghosts of disappointments, or a JG Ballard story taking place inside a surrealist painting. We can make this world what we want it to be.”

“The musical ideas for channels came to me back in March of 2016,” says singer/guitarist/songwriter Kyle Hornbeck.

“That’s where the initial chord progressions and layers came about. I think I was looking for something full of sheen and ambience but with a pop structure and heavy bass. The theme of Mitch’s lyrics captured the essence of the music perfectly and the song really came together when it was brought to the full band for the studio production.”

Watch the video for Channels below:

Cold Heaven formed in Newburgh, New York in the late 2000s, taking their name from the W.B. Yeats’ poem describing the gloomy landscape of Manchester. Their brooding, intellectual songs incorporate lush, expressive synths, punk sensibilities and haunting melodies. Influenced by The Cure, Joy Division, New Order, Interpol, The National, Hammock, Sigur Ros, and Alkaline Trio, the instrumentation is largely arranged by Hornbeck, while Flanagan pens the lyrics. Together with live members Stephen Karlsen (keyboards), Dan Miccio (drums), and Jeffrey Paggi (rhythm guitar), they bring dominant melodic bass lines and towering layers of guitars juxtaposed with sorrowful, melancholic, and at times deeply painful themes.

Their debut album, Between Conversation and Silence, was released in September 2013. An instrumental album called Atmospheres was released in 2020 during quarantine and is streaming everywhere along with the 2021 EP Slow The Drought.

Pre-save the new album Unraveled on Spotify here.

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