Against Me! is back with a new video off of their two-month-old album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues. The nearly three and a half minute visualization of “Black Me Out” is a shadowy, aggressive version of the track that tells its story through cut-out letters and gritty black and white cartoonish images.
Against Me! has gone through a few changes recently. Transgender Dysphoria Blues is the band’s sixth full-length album, and deals primarily with lead singer Laura Jane Grace’s experiences as a transgender woman. Known until 2012 as Tom Gabel, Grace announced that year that she would begin the transition process to become female. The band is also fresh off of a by-all-accounts successful SXSW show last Wednesday at Stubbs BBQ, alongside the likes of Cloud Nothings, Future Islands, Warpaint and Future. This winter, the band also announced spring tour dates that are taking it from coast to coast and even on a short tour of Canada.
“Black Me Out”‘s new video is a complete ode to aggression, but it’s more than that as well. On one hand, the all black and white clip channels styles of music videos from the past, using images of the band performing inside an ancient-looking TV set. In the same line, the video switches to projected cut-outs of scary looking creatures, proclaims “I want to piss on the walls of your house,” and slices the fingers off of a black cut-out hand. It’s a new take on the artistically-channeled anger that Against Me! has always been known for and the latest installment in an album that has become a pleasant surprise for fans, stretching the parameters of what they’ve come to expect from a band that’s been around for more than 15 years.