With their new video, Houston bizarro heavy rockers Funeral Horse are more or less saying goodbye to their 2015 album, Divinity for the Wicked (review here), but true to form, that’s hardly all they’re saying. The clip premiering below for “Underneath all that Ever Was” starts off with a Stranger Things reference, digs into a narrative about a downer bureaucrat — played by drummer Chris Bassett — working a suicide prevention hotline and not caring, cuts suddenly to guitarist/vocalist Walter “Paul Bearer” Carlos on his phone waiting to shoot for his solo, and then goes back to Bassett‘s character drinking at his desk, only to be visited by Death, who very cleverly high-fives him, ending his life, and leaving a slew of distraught people on the other end of the suicide hotline.

Got all that? If so, you’re one up on me. Fortunately, director Larry Czach — who also worked with the band on their video for “There will be Vultures” (posted here) — was on it, but suffice it to say it’s very much Funeral Horse‘s thing to be on their own wavelength, so they’re right at home in “Underneath all that Ever Was” in addition to being part of a longstanding tradition of weirdo Texan noisemakers. The three-piece have a few live dates in the Lone Star State this month at which they’ll introduce new bassist Clint Rater, and then it’s back to preparations for their next full-length, which will presumably be out sometime before the end of the year, likely on Artificial Head Records. I’d make a prediction as to when specifically, but I think both the song and video below bear out the futility of trying to predict anything when it comes to Funeral Horse.

A few words from Carlos and Bassett follow, as well as the tour dates.

Please enjoy:

Funeral Horse, “Underneath all that Ever Was” official video

Walter Carlos on making the video:

Working on this video was an intense experience in that it was more like a movie production. We purposely wanted to make something that had more of a cinematic quality to it rather than standard band footage. At one point, we did have some live shots of the band, but that got scrapped in production in favor of the guitar diva scene. We decided on the song “Underneath All That Ever Was“ because it’s not only one of our favorites to play live, it’s one of our darkest topics… which fit with the theme of the failed suicide prevention consultant from the video.

This marks the second collaboration between the band and Larry Czach –- who produced the video for “There Shall Be Vultures” –- also from the current record. Larry has a long history in the Houston music scene -– going back to 1970 when he ran lights for psychedelic rock bands that came to town.

Chris Bassett on making the video:

It was a blast working on this video! We got to work on a lot of ideas to help bring the story to life. Working with Larry was a breeze. He listened to our ideas but also had some neat tricks up his sleeve for capturing the essence of what the story was all about. I think it worked out quite well.

Funeral Horse January Texas Tour (with Shadow Giant from Louisiana)
01/25 Satellite Bar (Houston, TX)
01/26 Black Monk (Corpus Christi, TX)
01/27 TBA (McAllen, TX)
01/28 Faust (San Antonio, TX)

Divinity for the Wicked preorder

Funeral Horse on Thee Facebooks

Artificial Head on Bandcamp

Artificial Head on Thee Facebooks

Tags: Artificial Head Records, Divinity for the Wicked, Funeral Horse, Funeral Horse Divinity for the Wicked, Houston, Texas

This entry was posted on Friday, January 13th, 2017 at 11:03 am and is filed under Bootleg Theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.