Shannon Saunders’ new music video adds intense drama to a heartwrenching single.

 

Remember around the turn of the millennium when there was a lot of music videos from pop groups that were shot on beaches? It was incredibly cheesy and cringey and, fortunately, the trend was killed abruptly.

That is until now, when electropop artist Shannon Saunders is making the beach-shot music video cool again. Her latest track, Pure, is a tense love song of sorts where every drum beat and vocal sample feels like a painful shot to the heart. It’s a brilliant track, but it’s emotionally exhausting to listen to as Saunders’ vocals — even when they’re heavily modulated — are heavy with emotion. This is on top of an already tense instrumentation that feels heartwrenching. And then the video comes in.

First, it’s in black and white, which is always a calling card of something serious, deep and meaningful. Stick that on a beach with turbulent seas and slowed down shots and this becomes one of the most dramatic music videos of 2016. With that said, nothing is as effective of seeing a fizzling synth sound manifest itself in the form of a breaking wave. It’s artistic, but it hurts.