Flyleaf “I’m So Sick”

FlyleafArtist:
FLYLEAF
Label:
OCTONE RECORDS
Video:
“I’M SO SICK”
Director:
The Brothers Strause
Add Date:
March 3, 2006

 

A big hello to all of my esteemed music video programming friends! It’s Andy Gesner and the staff from HIP Video Promo, back with another exciting clip from a band on the verge of transnational fame. A “flyleaf” is a page, sometimes adorned but generally left blank, bound at the beginning or end of a book. Flyleaf is also a rock and roll band that knows a thing or two about beginnings and endings: their songs often begin in an atmospheric whisper and end in a colossal roar. In between these two “pages”, the combo scrawls out heavy modern rock songs of pain, bewilderment, and unfulfilled emotional expectations – songs that are uncompromising and riveting in their intensity, but still radio-ready, oddly infectious, and, ultimately, hopeful. This quintet surely does rock with admirable ferocity, but they’re also melodic, and harmonically sophisticated. This is hard rock you can sing along to – especially if you, like the remarkable Lacey Mosley, are burdened by a heavy heart.

Mosley’s writing and singing are fierce, confessional, and occasionally brutal: she can scream like a heavy metal frontman, and just as suddenly, whisper in a voice that seems to betray desperate secrets. Tight, elastic, ominous, and occasionally frightening, the group supports Mosley’s stories with accompaniment that alternates between disturbingly delicate and positively piledriving. Word has spread among America’s heavy rock royalty: Flyleaf has become one of the hottest combos on the hard rock tour circuit, opening shows for Staind, Evanescence, 3 Doors Down, and Trustcompany. The band’s debut EP was produced by Rick Parasher, best known for his work with Pearl Jam, the Foo Fighters, and the Queens Of The Stone Age, and Howard Benson (My Chemical Romance, POD) manned the boards for their first album. Now Flyleaf – the pride of small-town Belton, Texas – has signed with J Records, and is ready to take their place within that company, and make a powerful impression on the globe.

“I’m So Sick” is the vehicle for that impression. It’s a three-minute encapsulation of everything Flyleaf does so masterfully: huge, pounding beats, growling bass guitar, impassioned lyrics, and a gorgeous-yet-terrifying lead performance that teeters on the edge of sanity. Mosley’s voice is strong and powerful throughout, but when it breaks into a scream, it feels like a windowpane shattering.

The Brothers Strause have applied their dark vision to clips for (among others) A Perfect Circle, Taproot, and Linkin Park. Their classic clip for Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me” is rightly considered a textbook example of how a director can make a heavy band appear palatable to a mass audience while retaining its edge. Cold, industrial blues and beige streams of illumination streak through almost all of their clips – the Brothers Strause can light up a frame and still make it look as though it was shot on the day the sun finally decided to stop shining.

Flyleaf is a perfect subject for their lens: the groupmembers do look dangerous at times, but they also radiate vulnerability and approachability. Mosley, in particular, dances and stomps in a frenzy, yet there is an undeniable fragility behind her abandon. Blue lines of light, as if reflected off of a windshield, streak the centers of the frames – the Brothers Strause flood the performance area with cold, white illumination, and allow the shapes of the kinetic musicians to blur. Sometimes the camera brings us tantalizingly close to them, but the images dance away, rotate, split, or just ooze into the fog. The restless camera provides us some partially-occluded, yet striking, images: a centipede, a bandmember dripping dark liquid from his hand, Mosley crouched atop a desk. As the camera pulls back, the silhouettes rock with abandon; the flared hem of Mosley’s dress shaking to the fury of the sonic assault.

Here at HIP we are super stoked to be working with our friend Rebecca Olsen at Octone Records again, along with Lou Robinson and Jordan Blaugrund at J Records. It is our greatest pleasure to bring you the latest clip from Flyleaf, a buzzworthy band truly poised to breakout in 2006. We have plenty of copies of Flyleaf’s self-titled debut full length CD for on-air giveaways, so don’t hesitate to get in touch! Flyleaf is currently touring nationwide with Seether and Shinedown on theSnoCore Tour through early March, so if you want to get in on this terrific rock action, please let us know. Together with Rebecca, Lou and Jordan, we are prepared to make sure we fulfill all your Flyleaf needs in a timely fashion. If you would like to set up interviews or video ID’s with the band, or if you need more info, call Andy Gesner at 732-613-1779 or e-mail us at info@HIPVideoPromo.com.