Photo Credit: Sharon Alagna

Austra has come out of the gates swinging in 2017.

The Toronto synth pop group (Toronto is producing nothing but quality lately) has already dropped their stellar album Future Politics which has been receiving high praise across the board.

Now, they’ve dropped the visuals for their third single from the album, “I Love You More Than You Love Yourself.”

The visuals are a subtle portrait of former US astronaut Lisa Nowak, which “gently” hints at her struggles with depression, who attempted to murder a fellow astronaut, a “rival” for someone else’s affection, a story that was always intriguing to both Stelmanis and video director M Blash.

“M and I were both fascinated by the story of Lisa Nowak, but wanted to explore it through a lens of compassion,” says Stelmanis.

“We wanted to use it to explore issues of mental health and depression, things so many of us experience, in the hope of further destigmatizing such conversations. We’ve decided to focus the actions leading up to her final arrest, and have tried to convey what it may have been like to be her, and what she was feeling. The final chapter of her story is much less interesting to us than that.”

The video itself shows frontwoman Katie Stelmanis portraying the astronaut as she goes about her day, purchasing the various instruments (a gun, pepper spray, a hammer) police would later use to accuse her of attempted murder, and of course the icy, pounding synth beat along with Stelmanis’ powerful vocal ability.

If the video (check it out below) isn’t enough of a fix, you can catch the band currently on tour in North America in support of their new album, which you can check out our review of here as well as an interview with Stelmanis here.