Spirit of the Beehive runs from the dread of boredom in “THE SERVER IS IMMERSED”

Trippy Philadelphia punk band Spirit of the Beehive returns this spring with ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH, their fourth LP and first for Saddle Creek Records. After announcing the record earlier this month with “THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN’T DO,” a song split between otherworldly atmospherics and howling catharsis, the band today returns with a new music video for “THE SERVER IS IMMERSED.”

A more upbeat cut by comparison, it’s still full of nervous dread, with Spirit’s founding members Zack Schwartz and Rivka Ravede trading call-and-response vocals to a Brit rock style groove, their words abstractly outlining the experience of being lost in ennui and confusion. (“You might wait but you’re already in the future. / Anywhere that you go, there’s a pulpit and a preacher.”)

Schwartz created the song’s music video, a warped collage in motion that is light years ahead of just about every other found-footage video we’ve seen. Instead of casually montaging loosely related clips from the Prelinger archives as so many do, Schwartz takes an assortment of chosen footage and bends it, dissolves it, isolates and recontextualizes it into something tense, oddly beautiful, and certainly befitting the song’s vibe.

Watch “The Server Is Immersed” below. ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH is out April 9th on Saddle Creek, and you can pre-ordeer it here.