Poliça’s “Driving” Is a Testament to Life After Trauma

The Minneapolis electronic-pop outfit Poliça have released their first single from their forthcoming album, When We Stay Alive, out in January of next year. The song digs deeply into a past traumatic experience of lead singer Channy Leaneagh, with its accompanying video shows just how destructive of a force this trauma can become.

“Driving” pushes along with an ominous feeling as the subdued instrumentation gives way to Leaneagh’s vocals. As she sings, her lines evoke disturbing images like a “crow begging a hawk for its meat” and “bones bend to eat the shit from the flies.” Soon a pulsing bass line takes over, giving the track a looming intensity. The darkness fueling “Driving” stems from a debilitating accident Leaneagh had last year when she fell off her roof and damaged her spine. Despite the challenges to recover, “Driving” shows Leaneagh expressing her clear resolve to continue “driving” herself onward.

The Isaac Gale-directed video for “Driving” continues to drive home this sense of foreboding, opening with a hypnotic view of a record on a turntable, which later spontaneously combusts. Eventually, the surrounding objects in the room around the turntable—lamps, speakers, tables—become engulfed in flames as well. There’s very little humanity shown in the video, yet when a hand holding a cigarette appears in frame, it becomes clear that someone has been watching the chaos unfold. There are also a few quick flashes of someone dragging their legs through grass, giving imagery to Leaneagh’s lyric, “legs running in the tall tear blades.” She describes this line as an image that would flash in her head while recovering from her fall, saying, “Laying in bed, as I healed, I would dream of running in green grass and tears would pour from my eyes.”

Leaneagh also explains how her fall challenged her personal approach to the album and caused her to reevaluate the story she wanted told:

I felt there were many things I could look at and say, “This happened to me but I’m okay now. It’s not happening anymore and I got the care I needed for it. Now it’s time to rewrite the story I tell about myself and to myself.”

When We Stay Alive is set for release on Jan. 31, 2020, on Memphis Industries and can be preordered here. Poliça kick off their European tour in February and will weave their way into the U.S. in March. You can listen to Driving below, and find their album details and tour dates further down.

When We Stay Alive Album Art: