This is the new Baroness video for the song “Wanderlust:”

And this is the newest Mastodon video, “Sleeping Giant:”

These are examples of what to do and what not to do in a metal video. Both of these bands are from Georgia, both of them have a relatively similar sound, and they are both on Relapse Records. Although I love Baroness’ record, this video frustrates the hell out of me. There’s no point in filling a video with interesting, narrative imagery if you’re not going to be able to bring those images to some sort of logical conclusion. I don’t care if a video doesn’t have a point as long as it doesn’t lead you on for four minutes in the assumption that it will. Okay, so there’s trapper guy shooting at rabbits, red lady dancing and playing with leaves, fat guy who also seems to have killed some animals (and he’s thirsty), and there are some people in suits walking along the beach. When the song reaches its conclusion and the band comes to a sudden halt, what happens? Trapper guy looks over his shoulder. At what? What the fuck is this video about? Why is he pouring blood on those sticks? Damn it, Baroness, you tricked me into thinking your video was going to be about something, anything. That sucks.

This Mastodon video is actually the first from them that I’ve liked. They, as well as virtually all other metal bands, have been guilty of making “pointless” videos full of imagery with no conclusion. But this video is great. The campy sci-fi effects look awesome, everything is obviously a cheap model – it’s visually captivating. The story isn’t immediately clear, but it’s fascinating: there are some aliens growing dinosaurs on some guy/hill, and Dr. Doom is overseeing. Good enough. When it comes time to pull it all together, the four god-like stone heads of Mastodon shoot lasers out their eyes and everything explodes. Brilliant. It doesn’t matter that the video didn’t say anything poignant. It was fun to watch and it had an ending. Why is that so hard?

Why do modern metal videos almost always suck? I’m hard pressed to think of current metal bands putting together anything decent that isn’t just a splicing of live footage. Sure, it can be argued that most videos suck regardless of genre, but at least rap videos are full of hedonism, and pop videos are full of hilarious human failure. Those things are inherently entertaining. Metal bands insist on telling tales, and all too often they are bad storytellers.