NZCA Lines - For Your Love music video review

Founded by Michael Lovett, British synth pop band NZCA Lines are back with their newest single ‘For Your Love’ taken from the album Pure Luxury.  It’s been 4 years since the last album Infinite Summer but the new release will not disappoint and if this single is anything to go by, it’s sets to follow in the footsteps of success of its predecessor single releases from the album.

The accompanying video is an interesting but well matched choice for the songs content, the song itself is a funky lounge style song with layers of classical strings, piano and synthesised funk, it almost feels like an elegant slowed down disco track and on paper the elements sound like they shouldn’t work but they come together perfectly and the music video does exactly the same. The video is a variety of clips from old school style films cut together and the ‘main characters’ are coloured silhouettes to allow for fluidity of clips so that the protagonists can look the same and although it shouldn’t work, it does. 

The video opens with a shot of the older MGM lion roar logo setting the scene for the vintage style video that lay ahead. The ‘mini film’ then opens with a shot of an orchestra all in white giving an almost heavenly feel which seems fitting given the use of a string ensemble in the song and the heavenly style all in white orchestra seems to work with the almost tripped out feel of the song and the psychedelic vibes of the sound.

The following clips then seem to play out a love story between the two characters who we first meet at their first encounter on a train, the female who is shown as a yellow silhouette and the male in a pink silhouette first catch each other’s eyes when they see each other through the window of a door separating their train carriages and we follow the couples story as they attend parties and such before we see them walking down steps and having rice thrown over them indicating what appears to be their exiting the venue in which they just got married. 

The ‘first chapter’ of the pairs story is then followed by a variety of clips of couples kissing who are not silhouettes and just the couples from the original clips no silhouettes over the top, it seems to be an interlude in the story to demonstrate love and the physical connection. 

The video then seems to return to the love story of our silhouette couple; but before we see the couple the section opens with what appears to be an alien spaceship heading towards Earth and at the head of the spaceship we are greeted with a new character in the story a white silhouette of a man. 

The video then cuts back to Earth where we are greeted by our happy couple at a party in one and others arms dancing the night away, having fun together without a worry in the world or so it would seem to be. 

The story then cuts back to the foreign spaceship which appears to have landed on Earth and begun their attempted invasion as we see the ‘aliens’ depart the ship with guns and begin to shoot at the people of Earth. 

As the shot cuts to a line of police making their way to the scene of the trouble we see the yellow female silhouette appear and almost jump back in shock as she sees the police convoy go past her. The following shots are then of the pink and yellow protagonists separately running through different parts of the city before the man in pink fires of a few shots killing some of the invading enemies. 

The video then shows the ‘alien’ in white stalking across the stage of what appears to be some type of theatre or club, and gun in hand he prowls. The yellow silhouette then appears in the corner of the screen seemingly trying to hide beneath the stage and as the man in white gets closer it seems to be the end, when suddenly she pulls a handle causing the man to fall through one of the stage floor doors and we can assume he falls to his perilous end because this is followed by clips of fireworks and people filling the streets cheering and celebrating what it would appear to be the end of the alien invasion and its danger to mankind. 

The cheering people and fireworks are then followed by the return of the silhouetted couple who are safely back in each other’s arms as they cuddle up together on a gondola ride and they are once again together, happy and at peace. 

The video then ends with clips of more fireworks and then a clip of cartoon style stars in the sky on of which is emitting a slow flash which dies down as both the song and the video fade out to silence and blackness. 

Overall the music video is a step away from the norm that we have come to expect from music videos but it’s a refreshing change that calls for people to suspend their expectations and just go with it and it’s vintage style combined with the alternative style is a new and interesting artistic experience the allows you to follow the love story of two colourful silhouetted characters as they fall in love and try to avoid an alien attack. To put it simply, ‘For your love’ is a great song with a uniquely artistic take on a music video and it’s an experience I’d recommend to anyone. 

- Georgina Shine

@imjustabandgeek