Today in music videos: Enigmatic singer-songwriter Cass McCombs stays enigmatic in "The Same Thing"

By Steven Hyden | November 2, 2011 | 5:08pm

Aux Features Music

Today in music videos: Enigmatic singer-songwriter Cass McCombs stays enigmatic in "The Same Thing"

It's been a very good year creatively for Cass McCombs, the reclusive singer-songwriter who memorably melded dark subject matter with sly humor on this year's Wit's End, and produced an even better batch of tunes for the forthcoming Humor Risk, which comes out next week. One of our favorite songs on Risk is about two childhood friends who start a cross-country drug ring, and then end up in prison, where [SPOILER] one of the buddies gets stabbed 60 times with a ballpoint pen by his cellmate, Charles. (The music is really good, too. Look for our review next week.)

Anyway, the lead-off single for Humor Risk is "The Same Thing," which fans of Wit's End will note is far more rocking than anything on that quietly devastating record. You can catch a few shadowy glimpses of McCombs in the video, which otherwise sets a series of Super 8 images to the song's insistent melody. [via Pitchfork]