Not to jinx things, but maybe—dare to dream—it’s all finally going to be over. The endlessly insane weather, where a blast-furnace West Coast summer gave way to an endlessly torrential fall followed by a sub-zero winter where pipes froze and the snow fell in white sheets.

God, Buddha, and Vishnu willing, it’s time to say goodbye to all the division and hatred, and not just in America—where things have gone so hopelessly south there’s likely no coming back. Things are headed that way on this side of the border as a Donald Trump Jr.-approved FluTruxClan Covidiot Convoy is currently poised to roll into Ottawa with a a message that every day can be January 6—if you only want it to be.

And then there’s COVID-19. That really needs to be over, and every misery that it’s brought with it for a grinding and exhausting two years.

The beautiful thing about Combine the Victorious’ “Thunder” video is the way it reminds you there’s power in little things. Like a walk where there are no cars, concrete buildings, or, um, people. The smell of the ferns and moss and soil and air in a West Coast forest. And the way the sun looks extra beautiful when its beams shine through a stand of trees in the Great White North.

“Thunder” starts out all teardrop guitars and serenely ethereal vocals, both more than welcome at a point in time when this world has human beings only listening to Kid Rock’s “We the People”, but actually enjoying it. Things build from that beginning to where the drums crash in on the back stretch and a guest appearance by Josö’s brings a majestic flourish of warmth and elegance to the proceedings.

You might notice that the video for “Thunder”—which Combine the Victorious describes as an “homage to nature”—starts out in stark and funereal black and white before the colour floods in at the halfway mark. That kind of mirrors today on the West Coast, which gradually went from foggy and grey to gorgeously sunflooded.

Sometimes, when you least expect, the darkness melts away and the light streams in. If only that’s a sign of what the weeks and months ahead will bring. Dare to dream.