The acclaimed midwest emo band is back. They’ve announced a new album, title LP4, and just released an absolute jaw-dropping 8 minute music video for the single “Bad Moons”. I had to double check the fact that it’s 8 minutes as they fly by so quickly.
It’s cinematography (Shane Bagwell) and direction (Alex Acy & Rémi Belleville) pair beautifully with the tracks reminiscent, dreamy but anxious sentiment, that switches about half way through to a more distorted guitar heavy climax, offering a big emotional release to the tension built. Centering on story threads featuring multiple teenage boys and young adult men, they capture feelings of guilt, shame, embarrassment and joy in a huge variety of scenes.
The music video’s striking look is achieved with shooting with an infrared converted sensor. Normal sensors have a filter installed, that blocks both UV and infrared light. By modifying the sensor or using additional filters, the footage gains a very unique and surreal quality, which is what they used for the first half of the song in black and white – notice the dark retinas.
The slow motion and camera movement further stylise the first segment and made me feel like floating backwards through time, seeing myself in lots of these small but formative moments growing up, having big emotional responses and (at least sometimes) learning how to regulate them. I love the bands commitment to complex videos, not shying away from an 8 minute tracks, I am sure there’s more to come.
Leave a Reply