If you know me, you’ll know that if you give me a sliver of conversational space in which to bring up tennis, you’d better buckle the fuck up. Or walk away for the sake of your sanity. But while my sports-related pedantic nerdery may focus on the true beautiful game, know that it branches out to all racket sports — minus pickleball, because that’s the lamest of the lame. So, when I caught wind that Ottawa’s Infrared was filming their latest video in a squash court, I saw it as a sign to combine two items from my list of obsessions and force it down the throats of Decibel’s collective readership. Though I’m sure more of you will appreciate the clips of MMA, boxing, football and hockey players biting it. And some of you will even dig the power slap footage, despite that “sport” being even lamer than pickleball.
Infrared have a history dating back to the mid-‘80s, have shared stages and chewed up Canadian blacktop alongside the likes of Sacrifice, Exciter, Razor and DBC, as well as fellow long-in-the-tooth, non-hoser heroes Flotsam and Jetsam, Artillery and Atrophy. I hazard to guess that hailing from the capital city and cutting their teeth in the same circles as Jeff Waters also means they’ve probably rocked out and cracked open a few adult pops with Annihilator in their time as well.
In a couple weeks, the band will self release their fourth full-length, Manifestation, an album that exists as an old-school thrash album in the vein of Testament and Death Angel without sounding entirely and blatantly old-school. And here today we premiere the video for “Concuss,” the record’s newest single. Says guitarist/vocalist Armin Kamal about the video and song: “Concuss is what you feel when you’ve had enough and want to let the world know how to treat you! Don’t mess with me! But it’s also a tip of the hat to the metal community and how they let out their aggression in the mosh pit. The video features gladiators from our various sports with hard-hitting action and even features our rhythm section playing full-contact squash. Hence, the video was filmed in a squash court. Serious, but not too serious. This is a sing-along anthem song and helps set the tone for Manifestation as its second single.”
