The latest music video from the lo-fi indie rock group S.M. Wolf is giving us carpal tunnel just by watching it. The band’s video for “Lies to Heathens” was hand-animated and rotoscoped by BrainTwins, and features a bright neon outlines of the band performing the track, which, thankfully for the animator’s sake, is a hair under two minutes long. The vibrant video is premiering exclusively today on Nerdist, so check it out above.
Most bands got their start because they were inspired by a favorite musician or because a group of friends wanted to see if they could make some music, but S.M. Wolf’s origin story begins with the 2013 vernal equinox. Adam Gross was asked to contribute to a cassette compilation celebrating the equinox with one-time bands, so he became a one-man band named S.M. Wolf, wrote and recorded seven songs, and eventually recruited more members to make his songs work in a live setting. Now here we are, with a visually stimulating new music video for a punchy quick-hit of a song.
The lo-fi psychedelic rock of “Lies to Heathens” isn’t just a hip stylistic affectation: Gross recorded the album in his tiny Indianapolis bedroom on an 8-track reel-to-reel and played all of the instruments himself, except for percussion and trumpet, which were played by band members Ben Leslie, Melania Rau, and Rachel Enneking. The lo-fi is very real.
The band’s debut full-length album Neon Debris was released on November 13 by Jurassic Pop and In Store Recordings, and is available to stream and purchase on Bandcamp.
