Photo by Stephen Yang

Waking up this morning to a half inch coating of snow and black ice patching up driveways and roads, a press photo of Greg Mendez sitting in a puddle of winter melt three days after the start of springtime is an apt way of visually describing the Philadelphia songwriter’s body of work. There’s a warmth in his wordsmith bristle, and yet everything is overshadowed by the cold reality within everything surrounding him regardless of the season, and so he seeks an escape with his creative mind. If you allow him to, you can sink down that rabbit hole with him, too.

On “I Wanna Feel Pretty” — the lead single from Mendez’ sophomore album and first full-length for Dead Oceans, Beauty Land — Mendez scripts an impeccably aching ode to that emptiness that creeps in when nothing around you is a place where you belong. Along the way, he gets robbed, rings in the new year alone and gets wasted, heads into rehab, and eventually escapes through the hole in his sock. “I couldn’t believe it, I felt so free / I couldn’t believe it / Except for the gleam in my eye where I see / The places I would be if I wasn’t me.” And yet, the way Mendez sets the scene over a timbre of acoustic guitar strums, bellowing piano keys, and xylophone plucks is an inviting pleasantry, even if it’s the last place you’d want to be.

Directed by: Rhys Scarabosio

Greg Mendez’ Beauty Land will be released May 29th on Dead Oceans.