The Manchester Orchestra, who has recently announced a new album in progress,  has released a new video featuring The Daniels for the song”The Aliens”. The music video was directed by Mike Dempsey, composed by Andy Hull and produced by Candice Dragonas and Brad Simpson. In the video there are scenes of the daughter and father dealing with a tragic event, and having the mother’s ashes.  As the video has a rewind of what happened before the first scene, where the daughter is laying outside with broken glass near her, the video brings in videos of flashbacks to when the girl was younger. The flashback also has its rewind with scenes such as the mother and daughter walking backwards up the stairs.  The video can be watched below.

According to NPR in an email, songwriter, singer and guitarist Andy Hull stated that “The Alien” is “a narrative about a small slice of time in a man’s life as he faces a lofty decision with a dire consequence. It is ultimately about family and the effects, big and small, that family has on everybody. We knew it was important for the video to have a narrative that added an otherworldly element without taking away from the original story. Mike Dempsey and The Daniels have created a beautiful and intense representation of life and the unexpected movements that occur for all of us.”

According to the press release, Dempsey adds, “I have always enjoyed photographing people in motion, falling down stairs or holding onto a tree branch or crashing into a wall with a bike. The band – a group of wildly talented musicians and storytellers who were an absolute blast to work with – hand selected a few references from my website and we developed concepts around them. While planning for ‘The Alien’ music video specifically, we chose to do a piece that could use physical movement to express an internal feeling, in this case it was a daughter spreading her mother’s ashes, but her experience of the event is like getting swept off her feet by a tornado.”

(Photo Credit: Marv Watson)