Top 5 Insane Metal Music Videos Chosen By Brisbane's Inovo

Brisbane alt-rock prog band Inovo have released a music video for their latest number, Swim Alone, which combines the group’s love of unorthodox rhythms, a la Karnivool, Incubus and Tool, along with the colourful, textured storytelling of Tesseract, Devin Townsend and Thrice. Check it out below.

“It’s about a dream I once had about a gigantic humanoid entity drifting through space, swinging off of planets to change its trajectory,” vocalist Dechlan Nicholls shared about the track. “In the dream, I was a prophet on the earth that had predicted its imminent approach to Earth and wanted to warn everyone that it would be here soon and bring about the end of the world.”

Guitarist Rhys Tyack added, “Declan writes all the lyrics, which invokes a very vivid representation of the story and meaning. I wanted the story to take some of that and combine it with the feeling I had when I wrote the track. 

“In the video, we incorporated quite a lot of symbolism and centralised the theme around confinement while keeping a cosmic horror aesthetic. We wanted to create a visceral dimension to parallel our reality, or collective experience, relying on semiotics for layers of meaning. Every shot was storyboarded as we didn’t have a lot of time on-set once people had intestines glued to their stomach or full-faced latex masks muting sense receptors.”

Because Inovo are so enthusiastic about music videos, they’ve narrowed down their Top Five Most Insane Metal Music Videos.

1. System Of A Down - Spiders

Rhys: It's very early 2000's but it's so surreal. It may not hit as hard as it did at the time, since comic book films and CGI are so prevalent now. I appreciate practical effects and props and the costuming, props and set designs are out of this world!

2. Rammstein - Zeit

Rhys: Anything which is filmed underwater grabs my attention. I'm not a big Rammstein fan, but they always are entertaining. I love the symbolism and subversive humour. I have always been drawn into narrative music videos and this one combines aesthetics, story and symbolism to still enable the viewer to interpret a meaning for themselves.

3. VOLA - Smartfriend

Declan: I love the practical body horror effects interspersed with old TV footage and chemical/biological weirdness. It feels so much like the start of an analogue horror series, being visceral and terrifying but leaving unanswered questions that we can only interpret the answers to.

4. Dir En Grey - Obscure (NSFW)

Karl O’Shea, bass: This whole music video is pretty much a visual collage of unsettling and taboo imagery. It’s like the band set out to get the music video banned. Of course, this video (and especially the song itself) made a fan out of me over a decade ago.

5. Portal - Curtain

Karl: The whole video is this surreal nightmare that suits the music perfectly. My favourite kind of horror is atmospheric and is heavier on vibe than shock tactics. You feel dread and hopelessness for 6 minutes whilst Hell’s house band plays for you. Certainly beats anything from The Conjuring series.

And lastly, Inovo's Swim Alone: