Alone or in groups, people can always find ways to deprive and destroy themselves.
Last Thursday, Alice in Chains released the official video for “Hollow,” the first single off their upcoming album. Directed by Robert Schober, it’s a creepy sci-fi story about isolation that plays up the oppressive sense of abandonment composed by Jerry Cantrell & company. And of course, I think it’s terrific. You really can’t go wrong crossing Alice in Chains with a little sci-fi/horror.
I was kind of baffled by the video at first – a lot of people still don’t think it fits – so I worked through the visuals and lyrics real quick to see what I could come up with. There were no big revelations, but some subtle details came into focus.
The overall visual story is extremely obvious so I won’t say a lot about it, other than I feel the lyrics are way darker, suggesting long term abuse that isn’t really presented in the video (unless you count the dissection of the slug/tumor/flesh chrysalis thing – but that’s a stretch). The kicks come out of all the little details supporting the main theme: from the protagonist’s Ganzfeld sleep chamber, to his meals comprised exclusively of condiments, to the scorched Earth below.
None of those are symbols I have answers for, by the way. I could interpret the Ganzfeld sleeper as pure, total, self-imposed deprivation in all things; the condiment meals being a dietary extension of that, representing superficiality being provided instead of substance; and the scorched Earth… Well, pretty much speaks for itself: Humanity burns. Together or one-by-one, we can always find ways to deprive and destroy ourselves.
You also notice things like the heart locket that disappears from his lover’s neck as the days drag on and their conversations turn ugly. You notice the look he gives his test subject one day, and how after that you never see it under his scalpel again. Instead it shows up on his neck. Stress can make people do some desperate shit.
The tension winds up to its tightest at the midpoint of the song, when the full chorus finally blooms (on Day 480) in tortured lamentation. “Silence so loud… Silence, I can’t tell my up from down.” Therein, I imagine, was all the permission Roboshobo needed to make this yet another music video set in outer space. Do you see me complaining? Hell no. But then, this guy put an owl-woman in the Deftones’ “Diamond Eyes” and that didn’t bother me much, either. (Could have something to do with these songs being so exquisite that they hold their own over puzzling visual executions.)
Unless you’re doing something awesome like this, you never want a video to be literal. Schober’s interpretation of “Hollow” makes a decent parallel to the song without having too many on-the-nose moments. Even if you’re not paying attention to the lyrics or don’t speak English, the film effectively communicates loneliness. It’s 100% thematically relevant – if not even 50% in sync with the imagery evoked by the lyrics – and makes really good sense as a representation of this brutal, beautifully haunting song.
Can I gush for a second about how heartbreaking I found that shot of the robotic hand as it flailed helplessly in the flames of the garden it once tended so carefully? Gah, that part just gets me, and it has everything to do with that wailing chorus. I really like how this first single sets the stage; I’ll be background-imaging an abstract narrative of a lonely spacefarer while I listen to the full album later this spring.
Ah, spring. I can’t even wait. Sixty-two days and counting down. Oh, by the by, here’s a neat-o composition made by fans with Instagram accounts. This is the best lyric video I’ve seen since they’ve started coming out officially. Nice work, fellow AiC fanatics!
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