German-born, Ireland-based musician DAMIEN CAIN returns this winter with Standarte, an atmospheric, emotionally charged alt-rock album available from today December 12th on the main digital streaming services. Now living in Co. Laois, the artist describes the record as “the most honest and personal work I’ve ever made,” a project shaped as much by his three decades in music as by the new creative grounding he found in Ireland.
In order to celebrate his new effort, DAMIEN CAIN released the music videos for the songs ‘Fascinating Face’ and the title-track. A dark, emotional fusion of nu-metal and emo rock, ‘Fascinating Face’ the song explores the feeling of being trapped between denial and desire, telling yourself you’re not in love anymore, while every memory still pulls you back in. The video reflects this tension: a stream of hyper-real faces emerging from darkness, each one holding a different emotion: longing, fear, hope, desire, regret. Behind them, subtly woven into the shadows, DAMIEN CAIN appears singing the song, as if haunting their memories… or being haunted by his own. It creates an unintended, but powerful illusion: as though the story plays out inside the minds of the people on screen, and inside the places we hide our unsaid feelings. ‘Fascinating Face’ is about the intimacy we try to forget, the seconds we sealed inside us, the scent, the skin, the breath – the pieces of someone we carry even when we insist we’ve moved on.
The title-track goes back to ‘Wallenstein’, a song from the early ’90s. DAMIEN CAIN explained that “the original ‘Wallenstein’ was inspired by Salvador Dalí’s Christ of Saint John of the Cross. It was my protest song against war, power, and blind faith – written when I was twenty and full of rage and questions. The new song continues that thread, but from a different angle. It’s still a protest, but now it’s also a reflection. I’m angry about the same things, but I’ve learned to turn that anger into poetry instead of noise.”
AA
Damian Cain by Peter Smallwood
Aural Aggravation 