Fans of Queens Of The Stone Age have had much to enjoy this year, thanks to the release of Joshua Homme and co.’s sixth and latest album, the “heavy, melodic, dark and dynamic” …Like Clockwork.
Then there’s their huge co-headline tour with Nine Inch Nails that’s hitting Australia next March to look forward to, but the latest release from the band – the music video for new single ‘The Vampyre Of Time And Memory’ – leaves quite a lot to be desired.
Developed in partnership with Intel and VICE as part of The Creators Project, the new interactive video for …Like Clockwork’s sombre yet searing ballad is touted as a “bold production, directed by Kii Arens and Jason Trucco and designed and developed by Darknet, [that] re-imagines the classic music video in the context of a virtual art installation distinguished by horror, weird beauty, and surrealism, and pushes the boundaries of creative expression.”
Surreal and B-movie horror inspired? Yes. Pushing the envelope? Hardly.
Along with a more traditional version of the music video, dubbed the ‘Director’s Cut’, the ‘interactive’ version of ‘The Vampyre Of Time And Memory’ (‘play’ it here) will look mightily familiar to anyone who’s played old PC point-and-click adventure games like Myst.
The “virtual art installation” finds fans clicking slowly through a creepy looking mansion, led down virtual corridors to a room that first obtusely links to an iTunes download of QOTSA’s new album before clicking through to footage shot for the music video – including a dapper looking Homme tinkling the ivories of a coffin-come-grand piano, and in another digital ‘room’: a zombie looking woman miming along to Homme’s lyrics.
(The 90s called, they’d like their technology back.)
The highly stylised footage itself is interesting (creepy mansion settings, venus flytraps, an abundance of taxidermy, a pale-faced Homme hamming it up), but it’s ‘interactive’ presentation isn’t, and really pales when compared to some of the engaging interactive content that similarly high profile bands have released recently.
In a year that’s seen far smaller bands come up with much cooler and better executed concepts (see: the video where you control how drunk a British band gets or this amazing ‘crowdsourced’ clip from a Dutch band), QOTSA’s ‘interactive’ clip really isn’t up to scratch, and compared to Arcade Fire’s Google Maps-enhanced The Wilderness Downtown video – released three years ago – it looks positively dated.
Even by the band’s own standards – with the Boneface animated videos that heralded the release of …Like Clockwork – the new clip is pretty underwhelming,
Directors Arens and Trucco say that “working on this Queens video was the ultimate artistic joyride. Joshua Homme and company gave us the creative keys to the car from word go… and Josh has a badass car;” but the ‘Vampyre…’ clip fails to move past second gear.
You can watch the macabre clip for ‘The Vampyre Of Time And Memory’ below, or suffer through some clunky point and click non-action to see the same footage in the interactive version at http://www.vampyreoftimeandmemory.com/
Nine Inch Nails And Queens Of The Stone Age Co-Headline Australian Tour 2014
With Special Guest Brody Dalle
Thu 6 Mar – Sydney | Entertainment Centre
Fri 7 Mar – Sydney | Entertainment Centre
Ticketek 132 849 or www.ticketek.com.au
Sat 8 Mar – Newcastle | Entertainment Centre
Ticketek 132 849 or www.ticketek.com.au
Tue 11 Mar – Perth | Arena
Ticketek 132 849 or www.ticketek.com.au
Thu 13 Mar – Adelaide | AEC Arena
Ticketek 132 849 or www.ticketek.com.au
Fri 14 Mar – Melbourne | Rod Laver Arena
Sat 15 Mar – Melbourne | Rod Laver Arena
Ticketek 132 849 or www.ticketek.com.au
Mon 17 Mar – Brisbane | Entertainment Centre
Ticketek 132 849 or www.ticketek.com.au
Tickets and info at http://www.frontiertouring.com/ninqotsa
