church fire erupted onto the Denver music scene five years ago and has been a powerful duo in the local industry ever since. The synth sounds prevalent throughout their music could easily place the band within the EDM category. However, the confrontational messaging behind their music and performances fit better amongst the goth-punk rockers. Their experimental electronic music defies conventional genre classifications — but damn is it good music.
church fire’s newest video for their song “sunday” picks up right where their last album left off. The music video is the first in a series that the band is releasing in anticipation of church fire’s upcoming album, summer camp doom diary. church fire fans can expect the release of that album at the end of this year.
The video begins innocently, featuring images of a home that could belong to anyone, with nice flowers and a bird feeder out front. However, the niceties stop there and things take a dark turn as soon as the front door opens, shattering the serenity that the video begins with and revealing a pig-man. The pig-man quickly becomes a victim, but only in the sense of the death that ultimately befalls him. However, it’s clear that he brought this gruesome fate upon himself.
As the front door to the house kicks open we hear the same tortured voice from church fire’s previous album, pussy blood. This is entirely intentional. However, in “sunday” something about the protagonist’s voice is different. When discussing the protagonist of the music video, church fire emphasized her ability to overcome. Still suffering under the weight of oppression at the hands of the powerful — the difference, church fire says, is that “she’s no longer willing to take it.”
In regards to the production and filming of the video, church fire had as much fun as you’d expect. “The filming process was a 10-hour day of iconoclastic, gooey bliss,” said church fire in a press release, “it is LOL, WTF worthy and perfectly showcases the raw, in your face, ‘doom-pop’ that is church fire. We hope you enjoy watching it as much as we did making it.”
The video is a frenzied gore fest. But more importantly, it’s conceptual and thought-provoking. The protagonist in the “sunday” video is empowering and transcendent — even if the demonstration of these qualities is a bit macabre. The transformation of the protagonist is in line with church fire’s own evolution as a musical duo. And just like the protagonist voice of the video, church fire is a force to be reckoned with.