VIDEO OF THE WEEK – CRO-MAGS

Chosen by DJ Monk

Despite the current lockdown, we are still receiving a healthy bundle of submissions for our coveted ‘Video Of The Week’ title. While some artists are trying to find new ways of visually interpreting their songs, others obviously have had the guts of their filming completed in advance of the global quarantine, with the finishing touches being added in isolated post-production. This week’s selection once again sees a balance of these two approaches….

Our lead offering comes from the renascent NYHC innovators Cro-Mags, and their video for the appropriately titled ‘From The Grave’, the title track of the second of last year’s comeback EPs, which also features on the band’s first full-length album in nearly 20 years, ‘In The Beginning’, which is due to be released next month.

The band’s hugely identifiable frontman, Harley Flanagan, told us about the background to the video:

“The idea is that I’m rising from the grave and going on a mission…like I came back from the dead to become the Grim Reaper himself. I think anybody who knows the history of this band and of my life will get it. It starts off at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, where I will be buried with my family and in-laws. In the opening shot, the grave I’m in front of is actually my mother’s.”

The song also features former Motörhead guitarist Phil Campbell. Flanagan says of the collaboration and Campbell’s involvement in the video:

“Phil is one of my favourite guitarists of all time and I still can’t believe I have him playing on one of my songs! I am so honoured. The footage of Phil was shot by his son Todd Campbell at his recording studio in Wales.”

Cro-Mags, who were one of the first acts to deliver an online-only show in the wake of the wave of global lockdowns which accompanied the C-19 outbreak, when they filmed ‘The Quarantine Show’ in NYC on 15 March, are due to tour the Über Kingdom and Europe next summer, with dates in Limerick, Dublin and Belfast already confirmed:

Animation is always a good fall back for a band looking to visually interpret their songs, and we have two examples of this as our next brace of selections. The first comes from Swedish classic-influenced hard rockers Horisont, who have just declared a ‘Revolution’ with the third single to be released from their UR-approved new album, ‘Sudden Death’. The accompanying video, which once again gives a radically different approach to the band’s interpretation of their music, comes from the warped mind of Romanian artist and composer Costin Chioreanu, known for his work with the likes of At The Gates, Leprous, Soen and, most notably, Ghost:

Next up, we have something of an homage, as the video which accompanies ‘One Hand Tommy’, the latest single from post-punk nihilists The Imbeciles, takes its inspiration from the classic 1956 French short film ‘Le Ballon Rouge’. In that film a bright red balloon is the only pop of colour in an otherwise grey, morose post-war Paris. Here, the colour is found in the red onesie worn by the song’s subject, Tommy, a child trapped in a dystopian landscape of nuclear annihilation with only a giant killer snake for company:

Our final offering this week comes from one of the hottest bands on the planet over the past year or so, and that is Ukrainian progressive metallers Jinjer, who have just released the song ‘Noah’ as the latest single from their stunning current album, ‘Macro’. The band’s bassist Eugene Abdukhanov said of the song:

“Tatiana wrote ‘Noah’ from the point of view of what if he did not succeed in perpetuating life on earth? Looks like we might find out sooner than we think! Times are scarier, tougher and stranger than ever. Our/your livelihood and everything we know and cherish are on the verge being swept away by a storm like nothing we’ve faced before. Will we have our own modern-day Ark? Will we manage to jump on board in time or has it already set sail? What will be left over after it’s all said and done? These questions are torturing all of us right now and the future is disturbingly uncertain. But we will survive and will get through this, like we did during so many dark times before. Together. Strong and revitalized with a much better understanding of what we are.”

The accompanying video is suitably claustrophobic and possesses a density and intensity which matches the same qualities in the song:

That’s your lot for this week. Hope you have enjoyed the new sights and sounds we have brought to you this week. Until next time, keep ‘er lit, keep ‘er between the hedges and #StayTheFuckHome…