Video Premiere

There Will Be Blood

January 31, 2011 0 Comments

I don’t know what’s in the water with indie-rockers lately, but these three bands don’t shy away from showing a little blood in their new music videos.

First up is “Cameras,” the latest single from Matt & Kim, which reveals a much darker side of the usually shiny, happy duo. One assumes even this real-life cute-as-a-button couple must still experience the occasional tiff. Life can’t always be all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows (and occasional nakedness). But in the clip below, tension between the two quickly escalates into all-out battle scene out of War Of The Roses. Both a kick-drum pedal and souvenir Statue of Liberty become spectacularly violent weapons. Say it ain’t so, kids!

Purchase Matt & Kim – “Cameras” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.

Unlike Matt & Kim’s blowout, Dean Spunt and Randy Randall of No Age don’t battle each other in the new music video for “Fever Dreaming,” but rather an unseen, terrific force of nature (the Smoke Monster?). What unfolds over the course of the clip is super-disconcerting for the viewer, considering the L.A. duo has taken shelter inside some sort of warehouse, where they’ve even set up a cozy little living room.

Patrick Daughters (Feist, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) directed this devastatingly destructive video. The lesson? Beware the calm after the storm, because just when you think the worst has passed…

Purchase No Age – “Fever Dreaming” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.

Completing this trio of bloodletting is Sleigh Bells, which like No Age, traffics in noise-pop, but does so on the opposite coast.

“Rill Rill,” the latest track to be plucked from the New York duo’s much ballyhooed debut, Treats, is a mid-tempo affair that stands in quieter contrast to the rest of the set’s delicious aural assault. I guess that’s why the visual accompaniment for “Rill Rill” called for something that turned up the volume. Propmaster, get me a switchblade and a bleeding telephone!

But like Matt & Kim’s fantasy fight, what’s with the resentment that seems to be all the rage among male/female indie duos making music videos? Maybe adding a third might resolve some of the on-screen tension.

Purchase Sleigh Bells – “Rill Rill” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.