Backslider Worship the "Pseudomessiah" Through Utter Chaos (Video Premiere)
It’s a new year, in case you haven’t been told that four hundred fucking times today already, and so far it’s just as bad as the last. The world is a cornucopia of shit to feel bad about—the proverbial ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag routine—so it’s a perfect time for Philadelphia powerviolence stalwarts Backslider to drop a record full of the grinding antagonism they’ve proliferated for well over a decade.
Honing their craft through relentless live excursions which, if you’ve been lucky enough to catch them, has made the audience only too well aware of how sharp their weapons have become. Today we present the video for “Pseudomessiah” from their sophomore full length Psychic Rot, which is available for preorder through veteran noise dealer To Live A Lie Records.
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“In a broad sense this song is about the false dichotomy of good/evil and how it can be used as an agent of manipulation and the narcotic effect of fanaticism.” begins vocalist Logan Neubauer. “The way the subjective nature of belief can result in two people looking at the same thing but seeing something entirely different, and the paranoia and vitriol that can create in each person.”
“Pseudomessiah” is just under two minutes of blistering powerviolence that feels like you threw Blood Duster and Dropdead in a blender with a few tablets of cheap speed you picked up at the truck stop. Mixed with a cacophony of visuals set to remind the viewer of the use of visual propaganda by organized religion over the last few decades, it’s a perfect ocular companion to the pummeling your ears will take.
Neubauer sees the video as the perfect full spectrum experience of that idea: “Our good friend Aaron Nichols that runs Nerve Altar Records took the live footage and made the video. My original direction for him was to combine the feel of Kenneth Anger short films with gritty VHS cult footage, like those famous Heaven’s Gate videos. I think that his use of psychedelic colors and concise but chaotic editing captured that energy in a much more refined and ultimately cooler way than I had initially imagined.”
Psychic Rot will be released in February through To Live a Lie Records just in time to help stop you from feeling good during the romantic holiday season. If people could stop fucking coughing at each other then hopefully we’ll be able to experience Backslider in their natural habitat, a dark and foreboding stage. I promise it will be worth the wait.
