At this point, we would have been disappointed if Fat White Family hadn’t put out a torturous, flesh-peeling music video with a can’t-look-away quality and a fixation on the Third Reich. No disappointment here. If you haven’t yet seen this brand new gem by the dark psych rockers, you are, as always, in for a good trip.
The beloved Peckham rebels have been on one big nasty adventure after the release of their addictive new full-length, Songs For Our Mothers, an album that is as dystopian as you’d hope for a band who cut their teeth on songs about chaos and destruction (“Bomb Disneyland,” anyone?). “Tinfoil Deathstar,” a searing, climactic standout on the new record, is a perfect taste of the groovy bedlam they’ve built their fat white name on.
If you’ve spent the past few months randomly shouting “it’s a type one situation” regardless of the situation, then we don’t need to tell you how easy it is to obsess over this track. If you’re not quite there yet, this brand new video is an excellent gateway drug into the terrifyingly trippy album, and yet another twisted portal into the Fat White Family mythos. This time around, the shock factor is supplied by Chris Grismer, who has also directed music videos for the likes of Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, and Death From Above 1979.
Fat White Family look right at home under his bleary projections of explosions and warfare, including some famed shots sourced from Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl – props to Grismer for recognizing that the rigid march of an army is well-suited for the sleazy beat of the boys. Not to mention that the reappearance of bugles (and rotting flesh, if you can call that a theme) is a nice throwback to the video for “Whitest Boy on the Beach,” making it feel like the warped sequel we distinctly remember begging for.
And truth be told, the simulated gore that finds Lias getting picked apart at the seams by a group of well-dressed schoolchildren has the capacity to repulse a vulture. Well done, family.
Article: Olivia Isenhart
