Watch: Expander Totally Nails "Mechanized Deathcanal"
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Truth: you don’t need a ton of money to make a solid music video. Mostly, it’s attitude, plus some creativity. It’s best to focus on the music, i.e. the video’s storyline should play a small but ultimately non-defining role. Leave the grand storytelling to big-budget bigwigs who’d rather make a video with music rather than a music video. Another hot tip: don’t go gung-ho on editing. You’re still learning. Just do fast, smooth cuts in step with the music’s beat, mild effects here and there for flair; let the content shine through. If the band is wild enough, you don’t need to hyper-process things for extremity’s sake. Be cool.
Following this rubric is Austin-based thrash-something-core band Expander with their recently released debut full-length Endless Computer. This album is like some kind of alien mechanical acid, caustically gnawing away at anything it touches: grinding guitar riffs, crashing drums, and roboticized screams. It doesn’t care, it just wants to destroy. Endless Computer fails to cease, a victory of heart and soul over patience and finesse (though Expander does know how to dance). Plus, the production is fresh, a blend of warm and hollow; even the album art is groovy as hell. The point is this: the musical appeal is all there, but so is the style and grit. To wit, below is an exclusive look at the music video for “Mechanized Deathcanal.”
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The video features the following: tin foil surgical masks, flags as capes, car trunk hotboxing, playing the snare drum with your head while wearing a cheap Halloween mask, donning sunglasses inside, holding invisible oranges, and laying down some fine, fine fucking thrash. Expander have the formula nailed: be weird, be wild, be whatever. The sole ideas are to headbang and to hail the riff. And because you can’t see clearly when headbanging, Expander went full-on mad with the video’s four million cuts. Mind-numbing, eye-melting, tongue-drying, but in the right and purposeful and true-to-form way.
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Endless Computer released on September 20th via Nuclear War Now! Productions. Stream the entire album below.
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