With a name like theirs, no one expects A Good Rogering to play light-hearted rock music for an easy audience. That said, the band also don’t exactly perform the high-flying pirate metal their title might suggest — instead, this Austin-based crew grind out acid-edged hard rock and groove metal that’ll have fans of classic ’90s acts like Alice In Chains and Melvins foaming at the mouth. It’s exciting to hear artists today playing such genre-straddling sounds to such awesome results.
On their new single “Systematic Paralysis,” A Good Rogering take this style to all of its awesome extremes. One minute, it’s searing riffs with bellowed vocals; the next, it’s slower, funkier sections with gravely singing. The video, meanwhile, tells a harrowing tale of your average TV viewer being sucked in by the media machine in the form of an evil mob of S&M agents and creepy old doctors. It’s a fun, cinematic jaunt that bands from the era the song seems to reference would die to be a part of.
“The video connects the two music tracks,” says the band. “It begins with the closing riff of its predecessor but switches from the ‘Breaking News’ imagery on television to the perspective of a near catatonic consumer who is receiving a steady stream of mind-numbing propaganda. When the recipient tries to break free from the psychological grip of the TV screen an even greater hell ensues. The attempted departure leads the protagonist down a rabbit hole of sardonic terror, as masked villains restrain and torture their captive with sadistic glee. A metaphor, masked beneath the visual absurdity, toes a line between comedy and caution, as if Quentin Tarantino shot a music video for Aldous Huxley.
“Whether construed as ridiculous hilarity or a darker form of satire, the video provides an entertaining visual to coincide with the heavy-hitting riffs and thought provoking lyrics of the bands’ latest single.”
Check out our exclusive premiere of “Systematic Paralysis” below:
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Words by Chris Krovatin
