The Accelerants were a Wellington garage rock band, known for their live shows. “Up on Your Heels” is a a very ’60s sounding track and the video plays up to that.
The video starts with an LP playing on a vintage record player, and that leads to the band performing the song in a plain studio, with lighting and other equipment stacked at the sides. This set-up is like the t-shirt and jeans of the music video world.
For much of the video things are pretty uneventful. There’s the band playing, wearing suits. Most of the time it’s shot in black and white, but occasionally some colour is thrown in for extra thrills. The result is a video that isn’t very interesting. The band look bored to the point where the most exciting part of the video is when the camera does a whole lot of crash-zooms.
Things get a bit more interesting near the end when a whole lot of Mylar balloons appear. Even though they’re just heart-shaped, it’s hard not to think of the balloons spelling “Robin Thicke has a big dick” in “Blurred Lines” (or Lily Allen’s hilarious comeback). The shadowy silhouette of a go-go dancers also appears at this point, but not even that is enough to inject life into the song.
Maybe this video could work as a gothic parody of 1960s pop culture. Otherwise it’s just kinda dull.
Best bit: things get interesting when the reflection of the band is shot in the shiny balloon.
Director: Richard Bell
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision
Next… a prison break.