Video Premiere: Starpainter - "Cemetery"


Starpainter — credit Sebastian Buzzalino — 26.jpg

Starpainter are a folk-rock band hailing from Lethbridge, Alberta. On their fantastic 2020 album, entitled Bury Me By My Family, they soaked up the very essence of the prairies and delivered it back to the listener with 34 minutes of exquisitely crafted folk-rock peppered with subtle psych and americana that veered in and out of pop territory. The songs elegantly tackle beauty, love, fear, and loss and could be called one of the most underrated albums from last year. (Sadly it was underrated by this publication as well. Our only coverage was this Quick Pick review… sigh.)

Fortunately today we are able to highlight Starpainter with the premiere of their music video for “Cemetery.” We reached out to front person Joel Stretch for more details.

”Cemetery is the pseudo-title track for our record - "Bury Me By My Family" comes from a verse in this tune - and is a love song for my family. It's about the odd comfort that comes from knowing what’s going to happen to your body after you die. I think having a family plot at the town cemetery is beautiful and weird--it used to be pretty standard and I wonder if maybe death would feel a little bit less scary if you knew from a young age exactly where your body was going to end up? Or maybe would make death more scary--I'm not sure. This song is also about the big and small ways we hurt the people we love out of selfishness or carelessness over the course of a lifetime.”

“This video was dreamed up by Adam Thom and Gianna Isabella and they did the footwork to put together a talented crew of Lethbridge folks to make this video happen. We made this video over the course of a couple very cold evenings in and around Lethbridge.”

Enjoy “Cemetery” below and pick up Bury Me By My Family on vinyl, CD, or digitally here.