takesStellar return with the first single from their second album “Magic Line”. “All It Takes” is a song about determination and sacrifice, but it feels a bit lazy, like Stellar have settled on a specific sound and all their songs are just variants of that.
The video, however, is less than lazy. Going with the themes of the lyrics, the video puts the band on a picturesque fitness assault course. Boh (who has ditched the shocking red hair of “Mix” era videos) and the band aren’t even given boots and cammo to wear, struggling through the mud in their regular rock threads and carrying their instruments.
The group struggle with the challenges, hurling themselves over planks, along wires, under barbed wire, and over a big-arse wall. There are also a lot of shots of Boh away from the assault course, doing her duties as face of the band. She also bravely sings while standing on a wire, looking only slightly nervous while she sings “I’m looking out for someone who’s not afraid of anyone.”
It’s a similar kind of humour that Joe Lonie has in his videos (especially of the “make the band suffer” variety), but Jonathan King’s cinematography gives the action a much more stylish look.
Stellar seem to do ok with the physical challenges, leaving me feeling confident that they could be called on to as a pop-star territorial army, should Six60 ever take their “Rise Up” song too seriously. But then right at the end we disappointingly find the group exhausted, huddling with blankets and a hot cuppa (and one of them is laid out flat getting oxygen).
Best bit: Boh cleverly using her mike stand to hook a rope swing.
Director: Jonathan King
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision
Next… double devilwoman devastation.