Plug in and Burn out with Soom’s Bizarro New Video
Dear reader, you’ve worked hard this week. You deserve a mental voyage down the rabbit hole, and there’s no better way to do it than dropping Soom’s audio-visual acid and seeing just how deep it all goes. Today, I’m pleased as hell to take you through the looking glass of “Вщент (Burned Out).” Let’s get weird with it.
What’s that? Not hip to the Ukranian-folk-meets-stoner-doom underground rumblings of Soom? Well, buddy, have I got one hell of an introduction for you. “Вщент” is the second track from Soom’s forthcoming sophomore album, Джєбарс (Djebars),” and it’s a doozy. Combining the earth-shattering low-end rumble of the likes of Conan with the mystic fuzz of Deadthrones and the unapologetic malevolence of Bathe, the Kharkiv trio tell sonic tales of urban decay and alluring counterculture with surprisingly engaging hooks and riffs that mercifully avoid the usual pitfalls of this style of music. The drums skitter and pummel in alternating intensities, the guitars leap and drag with changing dynamics, and the mostly instrumental narrative gets a nice injection of chaos from some noisy leads and shamanic vocals. “Вщент” is a hell of a jam, from its smothering feedback to eerie atmosphere, and it’s the perfect little potion to drop you into Soom’s world.
The video, though. Ooh buddy, this is wild.
Animated by Анна Ковалевич (Anna Kovalevich) and edited by Дарья Черничкина (Daria Chernichkina), the ten-minute video for “Вщент” is a krokodil-fueled mental voyage through mixed media flashes and unsettling stock footage. Within its menagerie of oddities you’ll find paper cut-outs of skinned animals, flashes of (seemingly) USSR propaganda, and weirdo bits of flash animation that would make the Williams Street production team proud. The video spans such a wide breadth of incongruous images that it’s difficult to encapsulate everything that assaults the senses and nigh impossible to conjecture a meaning beyond, “Bad trip, man!” but it remains interesting throughout as it invokes the weirdness of late eighties and early nineties videos from Bruno Schulz and Tool.
Really, it’s the kind of thing that just needs to be experienced, so turn on, tune in, and drop out below. (Just FYI, this video features some grainy photography that might be NSFW).
Many thanks to Soom and Robustfellow for the video premiere. You can pre-order Джєбарс (out 4/20, lol) on Bandcamp here from Robustfellow and find Soom on Bandcamp here. Soom and Robustfellow can be found at their respective Facebook pages.
