PALM TREES IN MOSCOW, "I WANT IT BACK"
“Life will get better,” it is scrawled in graffiti to start Chris Frantz, or Baltimore’s Palm Trees in Moscow’s, new video and song, “I Want It Back.” It is visceral shoe gaze, 90’s-reminiscent rock, in the same vein as his previous releases. And the video is urban footage, with cool coloring (greys and turquoises and blues), with footage of empty bus stops, halted construction, and store fronts in neighborhoods that he and other Baltimore artists might find themselves playing in Charm City. All punctuated with potent footage of Frantz rocking out, and singing the catchy chorus, which will tug on your heartstrings, for the thing that you might long to have back in your life.
“Self destruct the dreams you wanted / Laugh behind an earthy smile.” Like much of Frantz’s work, there is the intelligent interplay between fantasy and reality, highlighted here by the semi-ironic graffiti opening the video. In a song, singing about “debtor’s jail” and “toxic building blocks of your own denial,” Frantz mirrors in his video the struggle of every day life, and the powerful desire that might get buried beneath our stress and disappointment.