Bristol trio Blank Atlas have never been shy about laughing at themselves, and the video for their new single, No Good, takes that a step further. Written about the angst of letting your loved ones down and desperately wanting to be better, the video sees drummer Tom Thould getting booted from a string of jobs for being no good at any of them, a tongue-in-cheek follow up to the video for ‘Better Off Dead’, both directed by Elliot Withers of Lion Island.
After taking some time out to write and record their sophomore album – the follow up to 2023’s Dawn Chorus – Blank Atlas have returned with the familiar sound that built them their reputation: thick three-part harmonies, angst-driven riffs, all wrapped up with a chorus melody begging for crowd participation.
Drummer and vocalist, Tom Thould said “The song was actually inspired after watching an episode of Love Island. A lot of the people on the show will always say someone’s “No Good” when they’ve been done dirty. I thought that’d be a fun little lyric work into a song. The song came pretty quickly after that, so we’ve got Love Island to thank for that one! I also really like the chords we used for this one which was inspired by bands like Lower Than Atlantis (RIP). I also recorded the drums for this with a sprained ankle, so that was fun!”
Guitarist and vocalist, Dan Thould said “We’ve been so excited to finally release this one. We sneakily played it for the first time at our acoustic set at 2000trees festival this year, and it went down really well! It’s no secret that we have an affinity with Trees, so getting to play it to all the lovely people there was such a treat, and just made us even more excited to finally release it.”
Bassist and vocalist, Chris Simpson said “We really enjoyed getting this video together. We wanted to do another tongue in cheek video again, as we hadn’t done one since the video for Better Off Dead which was 4 years ago now! I played a grumpy boss at an office, which was fun to play, although it was super hard trying to get through that without laughing. Safe to say it took quite a few takes, but we got there in the end. Can’t wait for everyone to see it!”