By Olivia Glod

Building anticipation for his upcoming album, Briston Maroney displays growth in single “Deep Sea Diver” as he diverges from his usual sound and into a genre-breaking track. 

Maroney’s typical arrangement of sound, particularly on hits “Freakin’ Out On the Interstate” and “Caroline,” consists of choppy riffs supporting echoing vocals that bounce off the walls of a vast empty room. “Deep Sea Diver,” on the other hand, removes you from that room and invites you underwater. The song blends a series of genres, intertwining classic country twang with an electric guitar and accenting a nearly muted keyboard with chimes. Maroney also exhibits a wider and more confident range of vocals than heard from him before. With fluid, drawn-out electric chords and a bright but mellow backbeat, Maroney sets you up to dance to his new single, but only in slow-motion.

Upon first listen, “Deep Sea Diver” might take you comfortably sinking to the ocean floor or aimlessly floating across the cosmos. Instead, Maroney creates a juxtaposition with his sound by taking you somewhere completely different in the music video: The suburbs. 

Directed by Joey Brodnax, Maroney travels from overgrown meadows to backyard tennis courts singing a familiar tune for anyone who has spent their days wondering when they would no longer feel stuck or “sick and tired of this old routine.”

That’s not to say the music video is a straightforward story. The entire video is color corrected to maintain red highlights with shots wavering from hyper-focused, extremely steady close-ups to shaky handheld fish-eye moments of Maroney and friends dancing. 

Perhaps the most standout moment in the entire video is a single shot lasting over a minute of Maroney nailing a full blown-out choreographed dance on a tennis court to the final chorus of the song. The lights cut out on the court as the last note (in this case a chime) brings the song to a perfectly expected halt. 

“Deep Sea Diver” catches you in a daydream, which is maybe why Maroney chose to highlight the potential boredoms of finding yourself trapped by the suburban sprawl.