The Songbards, a young rock band from Kobe, in March this band will celebrate its second anniversary, is inspired by the English rock band The Beatles. It is maybe for this reason that this band was invited to perform during the Beatles festival International Beatle Week last August. The band indeed gives this vibe with the songs they play. The quartet, consisting of guitarists Yuji Matsubara, Kouhei Ueno, bassist Atsushi Shibata and drummer Yoshihide Iwata, released The Places in October, the second mini-album of the band.The striking thing about this young band? They all sing along in the songs.
Inner Lights is one of the tracks that can be found on this mini-album and is a sweet love song in which the polyphony of the band is a big highlight. It makes you nod along with the song, while you get a fresh Spring breeze over yourself. Inner Lights is easy to digest so it may not be enough to listen to it only once because it turns a smile on your face.
The music video only makes the song better than it already is, because it connects the lyrics, including looking out from the moving train. It starts and ends in the train with Kouhei listening to music. Eventually you end up in a dark living room where Kouhei plays guitar and sings, while he writes down the lyrics of the song. He takes this to the other band members where he shares what he have written down. In the meantime, you see the surroundings pass you by means of a photo frame, monitor or on the laptop. Meanwhile the process of producing the song progresses, with Yuji ending up with drummer Yoshihide who shows the design of the mini-album. It ends in another dark room where Kouhei plays his guitar while he looks outside. The moving image you can see from a train passes him while he sings the song. At this moment the singing together comes forward, which makes the song very strong. When the light get flicked on, you see all the band members playing the song together. The video seems to be filmed at once by means of a tracking shot, where the choice is made that the camera follows the musicians. The camera makes smooth movements and rotates regularly so that certain parts of the rooms are invisible for a short while. Suddenly a musician can appear while the camera rotates to another part of the room. The result is a quiet video where the audience could take a look at the process of making music.
Rating: 80/100
