Shannon And The Clams - “Corvette” (Official Video)

Shannon Shaw has a hell of a voice. She effortlessly toggles from a croon to a purr to a rumble, all the while retaining the kind of magnetic charisma that silences rooms. Her band, the 1950s-flavored Oakland trio Shannon And The Clams, just announced their fourth LP Gone By The Dawn, which will be out this fall. “It’s not dark, but it’s kind of a devastated album,” Shaw told The Daily Californian. “Cody [Blanchard, guitarist] and I both ended up going through these really sad breakups right around the same time, so that’s absolutely reflected in the work.”

That’s certainly true of first single “Corvette.” The song is probably the highest-fi they’ve ever sounded, with that voice resting comfortably in the center of a spacious arrangement of trudging bass and twangily mournful guitar, and the lyrics manage to simultaneously convey a very specific heartbreak and puncture the broader fantasy of the sunglasses-wearing, fast car-driving cool guy. The Loren Risker-directed video perfectly matches that idea, alternating between shots of the band performing in black-and-white and a brightly colored, obviously green-screened romantic ride in the titular Corvette. By the end, of course, the retro hunk boyfriend is revealed as a fake, a literal leather-clad Ken doll.