Check Out The Agonist’s New Video for “The Raven Eyes”
Death comes for a sorry few in The Agonist’s new music video for their song “The Raven Eyes”, taken off of last year’s record Five. It was certainly a different direction for The Agonist, but it still maintains the unique stamp of their sound sound. It’s completely acoustic, with clean vocals the whole way through, and, unlike Suicide Silence’s attempt at the same thing, it’s good.
“The Raven Eyes” has a narrative quality, as if it were a novel, and the video that accompanies it helps me read it as such. Most of that feeling has to do with the lyrics, which are vaguely conversational throughout, and the description they convey. “They look to him as the savior / His raven eyes watch through domes of glass / His heart races and his palms, they sweat” are lines of the song that really drive home the point of the video. I feel like I’ve read these words before, this theme of Death as a friend, suicide as a method; it’s familiar, and together the song and video tell a story of Death and its journey.
In a press release, guitarist Danny Marino said the video was originally intended to be “…stories of the renaissance plague doctors,” and that “FTB Visuals was able to take these themes and create a modern world storyline with an equally dark overtone that captured the painful emotions in the song.”
I would agree, though I’m not sure that a guy who looks like a murderer grab a bunch of unsuspecting people in a dark mask while holding a knife is really communicative of a plague doctor. There are plenty of real world examples that FTB Visuals could have used to bring the song to life, like the sorrow in Flint, MI where citizens have been forced to drink, bathe, cook and clean with lead-poisoned water for almost five years. Or the recent spread of measles, an illness almost completely eradicated across the globe, because anti-vaxxers are more afraid of autism than death and are willing to believe rich white people and a doctor who had his license stripped over actual medical professionals and thousands of studies. I mean, talk about plague doctors.
But regardless of how I believe art should function as a tool with an aesthetic, I like this video, and I like this song a lot. Watch it below. The Agonist will be touring their native Canada extensively in August, and you can get dates for that underneath the video.
08/04/17 Montreal, QC @ Foufounes Electriques
08/05/17 Toronto, ON @ The Rockpile
08/06/17 Kingston, ON @ Overtime Sports Bar
08/10/17 Rimouski, QC @ Bar Le Match
08/11/17 Moncton, NB @ Le Coude
08/12/17 Halifax, NS @ Gus Pub
08/14/17 Jonquiere, QC @ Salle le 4 Barils
08/15/17 Quebec City, QC @ L’Anti Bar & Spectacles
08/16/17 Trois-Rivieres, QC @ Rock cafe le Stage
08/17/17 Gatineau, QC @ Minotaure
08/18/17 Rouyn, QC @ Petit Théâtre du Vieux Noranda
08/20/17 Thunder Bay, ON @ Crocks
08/22/17 Saskatoon, SK @ Vangelis Tavern
08/23/17 Edmonton, AB @ Brixx
08/24/17 Prince George, BC @ Generator Cabaret
08/25/17 Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre
08/26/17 Kamloops, BC @ The Dirty Jersey
08/28/17 Calgary, AB @ Palamino
08/29/17 Regina, SK @ The Exchange
08/30/17 Winnipeg, MB @ The Park Theatre
