WATCH AUTHOR & PUNISHER’S VIDEO FOR “TERRORBIRD”

“Terrorbird,” the new video from Author & Punisher (a.k.a. former-engineering-and-robotics-student-turned-one-man-band Tristan Shone), isn’t perfect; its budgetary restrictions are showing a little more than would be ideal, assuming one of director Augustine Arredondo’s goals was to aid the viewer’s suspension of disbelief. But that’s part of its charm. Its influences, clearly, are horror movies from the late 70s and 80s (the creature design owes a clear debt to both Giger’s xenomorph and Cronenberg’s iteration of The Fly, and the stark black and white cinematography recalls Lynch’s Eraserhead), and it definitely has a (pitch black) sense of (gallows) humor, so the fact that edges are showing a tad never derails it. In fact, it’s clearly part of this year’s trend towards above-average metal videos; it really works as a short film unto itself.

Maybe too well! I’m not sure I’d ever listen to Author & Punisher without Arrendondo’s accompanying imagery; I understand how it works as score, but I’m not sure it holds any personal appeal for me as a pure aural experience. Which is high praise for the video, but probably not quite the reaction for which Shone was striving.

“Terrorbird” appears on Author & Punisher’s Ursus Americanus, which is out now on Seventh Rule.

-AR

[via The Deciblog]