A modern-day funk bop that’d give Hozier’s contentious Take Me To Church a run for it’s money, Brisbane octet The Holy Rollercoasters cleverly polarise morals with materialism and family with faith in their rousing new music video, Bathe In The Blood Of The Lamb.
A delectable diversion from the band’s blues origins, Bathe In The Blood Of The Lamb takes a heavy dip into the waters of soul and funk, cleansing the palette like a sinner attending Sunday confessional. Exploring a man’s growing disillusion with God in comparison to the unwavering faith of his mother, the song’s upbeat groove juxtaposes its dark lyrical undertones.
“The main thing that inspired me when writing Bathe In The Blood Of The Lamb, was an old gospel-blues song by Walter Brown that I found when I was deep in a Boyd Rivers phase,” said vocalist, Jimi Beavis. “It described his mother praying for him. So Bathe was born from the idea of: what if Walter Brown, who sang passionately about his mother’s beliefs, turned out to not believe as an adult?”
Applying the same DIY-approach to the music video that they took when recording the track, Jimi set about trawling through copyright free archive footage and carefully splicing together snippets from 1950s US propaganda movies about nuclear war and living a good moral life to create the stirring visual accompaniment.
“I tried to juxtapose the all-American pro-capitalism/anti-communism themes of the videos with footage of bombs and potential nuclear war.”
“There is a vague structure where the young people get older verse by verse just as the character in the song does. In the third verse as he is attacked by planes, so too are the people in the propaganda footage. I used footage of happy, naive people amongst the explosions. It isn’t too deep but it was fun.”
A first sip from the musical chalice that is their forthcoming debut EP Bathe, the band’s newest track prepares the unanointed for the feverish darkness and hard-hitting funk-pop lashings yet to come.
Prepare for the Bathe baptism by cleansing your eyes, ears and soul watching The Holy Rollercoasters’ apocalyptic-like Bathe In The Blood Of The Lamb music video, exclusively below. The band’s debut EP Bathe is out 16 August via Valley Heat Records. Pre-order Bathe HERE.
BATHE IN THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB – THE HOLY ROLLERCOASTERS
