Video/Single Review: Life’s For The Living

This Mental Health Awareness Week brings the latest offering from The AJ Crawshaw Band; track that brings light to the artists own struggles with serious depression, to the point that he had planned how he would end it.

Life’s For The Living is a living testament that life does get better and passes on the words that helped him through the darkness and back to the light; “Just ‘cos you can’t see it, don’t mean it’s not there. Hold on, get help, take care”.

The track itself starts off with an almost melancholic vibe, using minimal drums and slow guitar to give the bare essentials that class it as song, until it builds and builds into a livelier, uplifting chorus.

Despite containing a fast-paced guitar solo, the emphasis on ensuring the lyrics are distinguishable and vocal styling gives the track a very specific sound. Whether it’s Band Aid singing Do They Know It’s Christmas, Dave Dobbyn’s Loyal, or Red Nose Day’s You Make The Whole World Smile, there is a certain mainstream anthemic value thanks to Crawshaw’s vocal style, the grain of which is reminiscent of Coldplay’s Chris Martin.

The accompanying video, whether purposeful or not, was well designed. Using a series of moving images and kaleidoscopic effects, there is a sense of constant movement. Despite a lot of repeated imagery, there is a clear transition from cold, blue grey imagery, towards brighter, colourful floral imagery. The video is largely calming, avoiding the use of a static image, which would feel stagnant.

A topic that needs to be discussed more in the real world. Props to AJ Crawshaw for taking the steps to do so.