Sometimes you get a music video; sometimes you get a rich audio-visual collision that you want to rewatch every time you hear the song. We’re proud that one of our favorite bands, Walking Papers, keep pulling off the latter. Their latest video is packed with personality and it’s a real treat to premiere it today. The work of art that goes with The Light Below’s “Creation Reproduction and Death” is laden with rock-out moments and even some risqué surprises. Walking Papers’ Jeff Angell, Benjamin Anderson, and Will Andrews are seen wearing TV heads, gorilla suits, gas masks, high heels, cowboy hats, and other wild attire (we’ll let you guess who dons what) as they set the scene for this scorcher.
A stylish and grungy collage directed by The Boredom Killing Business with Cory Ingram, Konstantin Komarov, and Bob Wayne, the “Creation Reproduction and Death” video matches the song’s dark yet playful energy. Close-ups of Andrews’ drumming and Angell’s guitar work seep through blue Staticland-y TV screens, mingling with rose-colored clips of destruction: storms tearing down houses and bending trees until they nearly snap. As Angell sings ever so coolly – “I had the feeling you were dirty but you didn’t know it / If I got under your skin, I bet you wouldn’t show it…” – he slides into view on a vintage sofa in front of murky pink clouds, navigating a maze of both mannequin and bandmate faces. As if you’re glimpsing something forbidden, the video’s racy parts happen in quick flashes during the chorus, which goes, “You said you’d hold me ‘til there was nothing left / You said ‘You don’t know who you’re fucking with’…” Whenever Angell smashes the camera with his guitar, he also changes the scene: Anderson is suddenly rocking fishnets and pumps while riding his keyboard, Andrews is beating a singular drum with hilarious solemnity, and Angell is thrashing in a black undershirt and suggestive leather mask.
Walking Papers
With its classic Walking Papers musings (“When I offered the crown, you just cast it aside / I tried to nail the door shut, but you were already inside”) and cliffhangers (“I’ll hang my shame on the wire / Should I pull the alarm or pour more gas on the fire?”), it’s a song that embodies their intensity. Right in time with Anderson’s orchestral keys (which Angell discussed in our recent interview), Walking Papers meld with their own engrossing sound and visibly have a blast. “‘Creation Reproduction and Death’ was a song written contemplating how much time we have left, how we will spend it, and who we will spend it with,” Jeff Angell told P&W. “It’s a question we can only answer for ourselves, compounded by the pressure that we may not know if we made the right decision until there is no time left to do anything about it. After making three epic videos, we wanted to cut loose and have a good time. We hope people will enjoy watching the video as much as we had fun making it!”
Article: Olivia Isenhart
Cover Photo: Cory Ingram
