Nothing have shared the video for “I Hate The Flowers,” a song off their most recent album Dance On The Blacktop.
The band wear their shoegaze influences proudly on “I Hate The Flowers,” with whirring vocals and a heavy, doom-shaded lower end. The track is described in a press release as “a love song about NYC and the strong sense of impending doom it leaves on you as you exit your apartment.” Frontman Domenic Palermo says, “I’ve been referring to humans as flowers since the earliest days of Nothing for their beautifully sad and their literal life/death cycle is so relatable.” A love song about being afraid to step outside seems about right for Palermo, who has endured the death of a bandmate, a violent assault after a show and the tragic loss of his father all in the past few years, and has still been able to emerge with new music.
The video takes that bleak, agoraphobic tension and runs with it—or, more accurately, crawls with it. It appears to be a document of a drug-related freakout, following the exploits of a man who seems to be only able to crawl through the world.
The video ends with the crawling man ripping a page straight from Syd Barrett, or maybe the movie Pi, ending up alone in a motel room with his head shaved and obscure symbols scrawled everywhere. It’ll make you afraid to go outside, and to stay inside, and to be in cities, and in forests, and motel rooms.