Ellie Goulding – “Figure 8″ | Music Video

Ellie Goulding‘s recent collaboration with ex-boyfriend Skrillex was a “Bittersweet” and emotive dance-pop venture, and she’s back revisiting break-up themes in the video for “Figure 8,” the second single from her recently released second-album Halcyon.

The new clip is in many ways a mark of how much Goulding has matured since her debut with “Starry Eyed” in 2009. In keeping with the track’s raw emotional feel and Monsta’s clashing dubstep beat, it cuts dramatically between scenes of the songstress writhing in agony, and shots of her dressed in a flowing, almost funereal red gown. Enveloped by darkness, Ellie seems lost in a loneliness-induced nightmare, and whilst the addition of smashed plates and super-imposed flames is a little bit unnecessary, we’ll forgive her for these lapses into cliche.

On the whole, she manages to captures the reality of adult pain with a maturity and dignity that some singers twice her age still lack.