Speedy Ortiz, indie rock group from Massachusetts, released video for their heavy rock song “Raising the Skate” on May 13th. As reported by Stereogum, the four-and-a-half minute piece features guitarist and singer Sadie Dupuis, bassist Darl Ferm, and Drummer Mike Falcone running around a haunted house, coming across enchanted spaghetti, creepy cats and a bloody knife.
There is a sense of randomness and spookiness in the video that suggests a Tim Burton-esque nightmare, where seemingly normal objects and occurrences turn into instruments of death. However, the mood in the piece is fun and disorienting, rather than straight spine-tickling horror. The band clearly chose to throw whatever dark, creepy scenes they could think of into an escalating sequence of destruction, devoid of any possible storyline. Even by the end of the video, there is not much sense to be made of the random violence that occurs in the haunted house, except that every good murder is followed by feeding some nip to your cat. To top it off, the campy horror scenes are split up by shots of the band traveling down a dark road, singing behind the wheel of a car. Overall the tone is over-the-top and silly, allowing the dark humor of the band to shine full force.
The song itself features an eerie synth-heavy introduction, disrupted almost immediately by thumping drum beats and a distorted guitar track. The vocals come in, reverberating in a way to make the voice sound other-worldly. And then the peaks of the energy of the song come with Dupuis’ strong, declarative vocals, which are timed to coincide with the more action-packed sequences in the video. On the whole, the style of the song meshes well with the supernatural theme of the haunted house.
This video comes out as the band tours the country to promote their new album, Foil Deer, which came out on April 21st on Carpark Records. So far the group has toured the Northeast and South, and is heading West to play up the coast and back to the Midwest, where the tour ends at the Forecastle Festival in Louisville, Kentucky. They play in Los Angeles at The Echo on May 21st, then the 22nd they come down to Santa Ana to play The Constellation Room. Both venues are known for hosting loud, garage-style rock bands, and should be good fits for the rowdy group.
You can check out the video, below, if you are intrigued enough to step into the nonsensical, quasi-disturbing world of Speedy Ortiz.
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