San Francisco’s frenetic rock group Cold Beat pummels the senses in this strobe-lit new video for the song “UV.” Directed by frontwoman Hannah Lew, the candles, chains and band members flicker behind a throbbing, multi-colored strobe light as drummer Bianca Sparta, deadpan behind a pair of sunglasses, slingshots the band through a three-minute burst of post-punk fury.
“UV” appears on Cold Beat’s upcoming debut, Over Me, due out July 8 on Lew’s Crime On The Moon label.
Below is a review of Cold Beat’s new album, Over Me, from NPR’s Katie Presley:
“New wave” is a much more precise descriptor than it gets credit for. Originally a space-filler genre title when “punk” was deemed bad for sales — when bands like Television and Talking Heads were nodding to but branching away from nose-bloodying Sex Pistols mayhem — “new wave” has left its interstitial 1970s origins and been refined to a point. A wave itself is an apt illustration of the combination of forces at work in much of the genre’s music, particularly in the marriage of two superficially opposed new-wave cornerstones: bubblegum pop and garage punk. Cold Beat, the new project of Grass Widow bassist Hannah Lew, represents the best of new wave — in title, metaphor and roster of influences alike.

Waves are visible as peaks above sea level, but propelled by forces beneath the water’s surface. The capacity is always in them to spin out of control; to move too much energy at once; to become tsunamis. But when everything works in balance, the ebb and flow is mesmerizing.