Like a breath of fresh air sweeping through my COVID-19 related isolation, Yours Truly have released “Composure” today. The new single comes just as their EP Afterglow has celebrated its first birthday, offering a first taste of a whole new chapter for the four piece. While the details are still a secret, we do know that the Sydney band’s debut full-length album is in the works.
The soft aesthetic of “Composure”‘s music video (directed, shot, and edited by Kieran Ellis-Jones) feels like a cosy and candlelit bedroom, where a relationship is reflected upon. Pop-punk vibrance rains down as vocalist Mikaila Delgado questions her actions while embroidering. The theme of needlework and stitching is all over the single, which seems fitting for introspective mulling over threads of who this couple were and what went wrong.
“You don’t get to say that you’re miserable without me now”
Radiant and high above the instrumentation, “Composure” has Mikaila/the protagonist taking the higher ground and ending the off-and-on-again relationship with confidence and fierceness. With an infectious chorus, the track refuses to empathise and fall back into old patterns, and makes it clear that the fault and responsibility lies with the other.
Reiterating the theme we can hear and feel, Mikaila shared that “”Composure” is about trying to keep your cool at the end of a relationship and how difficult it can be. It’s natural to be upset, angry and a million different other emotions at once. I wrote it at a time when I really needed to reclaim my self worth after losing so much of it, I was over being miserable waiting for acceptance.”
It’s at the end of the music video where I finally realise that the candles that have burned down to nothing are more than a mere aesthetic choice; reflecting the connection that ended. The metaphor of their flame of connection being burnt out runs through the song. Of the aesthetic though, Mikaila expressed a desire that the band had wanted the music video to feel “very personal and ‘hand made’ which is why stitch work and embroidery is such a feature in the video.” It works brilliantly!
Watch “Composure” below via YouTube and see what you think!
[Yours Truly image courtesy of Georgia Moloney]