French cousins Guillaume Alric (a.k.a Mayd Hubb) and Jonathan Alric founded The Blaze before joining Bromance Records. This resulted in their stellar track "Virile" being included in the new compilation Homieland Vol. 2 (2016) - and an accompanying music video that certainly lives up to the record company's name.
The track's title might suggest an ode to hypermasculine and hypersexualizd posturing, but the song - which features deep, rich vocals, a pulsing house beat, progressive synths and upbeat percussion - amounts to a rare and tender testament to male friendship instead:
'So let's quit fooling around
I'm into you
Taken by the sound
Cause you're the love I found
Hooo I need my loneliness
But I'm lost without you
I'm feeling so fearless
When you give me the proof
That my dream is so true
When you hold me
I'm alive
When you hold me I'm alive
And I'm sure when I say
You're the best friend of my life'
Lyrics: Musixmatch
The Blaze directed the music video themselves, presenting a night of intimacy between two friends in an apartment in the French suburbs as they smoke joints and dance with uninhibited joy. As Vice's Angus Harrison noted in a lengthy thought piece on the place of fraternity in the often-maligned violence and sexism of club culture, clubbing can open up a space for the formation of vital heterosocial bonds:
"Between this mixture of stupidity and menace, it can be difficult to find any positive light in which to cast the male presence in clubland. Even fraternal friendship comes with its doubts. Friends tell friends they love each other on dance floors and in smoking areas and living rooms every weekend and often we're likely to dismiss such sentiments as the result of alcohol, lines, and aux cables. Yet there is something unsaid and under-represented that exists in this space. While the pathos displayed through "Virile" could be easily written off as a strain of fucked chat, the video in fact captures something important and neglected. "Virile" is a portrait of the true and valuable male bond that can be made in clubland. The one that transcends asshole dancing and punch-ups. There's a silent agreement you make when you get fucked with your best friend, a pact that says "if we both jump off the edge then we do it holding hands." If you're going to lower your guard, lower it enough to cough up secrets in cigarette smoke, then it has to be with someone you know will go down with you and be there to pull you back out. It has to be with someone you love".
