Watch: The Knife – A Cherry On Top

Is this really The Knife’s new single? Is this really its new video? Are the Knife still a band? What is a band? What year is it? Who’s the president? Who even knows anymore.

With the brilliantly baffling Shaking The Habitual confusing the hell out of even its most ardent supporters, there is a sense to The Knife at the minute that if you don’t “get” what they’re up to, you can piss off. You’d suspect that some sort of joke was being played on the listener if the levels of earnestness and attention to detail weren’t both sky high, which certainly applies to the album’s each and every track.

Up until now, the videos for its songs have followed suit; they’re densely disturbing and darkly comic short films that add yet more layers of curiosity to the duo’s increasingly peculiar music. ‘A Cherry On Top’ though is… basically just like viewing two bits of green-on-pink graph paper through a kaleidoscope for nearly nine minutes.

YouTube commenter ‘mrchaser’ echoes the thoughts of many with his review – “Are you joking, is barely a song….. Where are the Knife of Heartbeats an Pass this on?” – but should probably stop waiting for the return of The Knife he knew and loved. The order of the day here is less melody and more detuned zithers, distant droning sirens and what sounds like double bass strings unravelling. You only need to watch the first 10 seconds of this ‘video’. But sorry, you really should listen to all of it.