Gallows - 'Misery'

Below is the link to a music video by a British hardcore rock band called Gallows. The song is titled Misery'.



The video opens to see a holy incense burner commonly used by priests etc. A similar one is seen below:

The audience will automatically link this object with religion yet when the carrier of this incense burner is revealed it is a complete contrast to what the audience would have predicted. This young man bares similarity (in terms of costume and appearance combined with similar location) to the character 'Shaun Field' from Shane Meadows 'This is England'.

There are frequent use of racist symbolism within this video which isn't very surprising considering that the genre of hardcore rock used to be an incredibly racist genre. Hardcore rock descends from the larger genre of 'metal'. Within metal there are many subgenres such as 'black-metal', 'thrash-metal' and 'death-,metal'. A very small genre with small amounts of publicity is NSBM. This stands for "National Socialist Black Metal". This is 'black-metal' that promotes national socialist (Nazi) beliefs usually through their lyrics and imagery.This video also uses Goodwin's theory of voyeurism (the notion of being watched). This is portrayed brilliantly by the Union Jack being flown down the dank and dingy city streets. Also notice the enigmatic figure to the right of the frame watching this flag waver. This connotes the idea of being watched. It could be argued that someone watching someone fly the British flag represents how Britain has once again descended into the idea of 'Big Brother' due to the vast amounts of money the government seem to spend on surveillance. The reason they tell us is it's for our protection however some people argue there could be a darker side to it all. 

This video is edited into black and white. The reason why is because it is paying tribute to the older film-makers. The greats such as Alfred Hitchcock, director of 'Psycho' etc. The album from which this song is taken is also called 'Grey Britain' which, obviously is a play on word on 'Great Britain' but also has a statement about the zeitgeist of contemporary Britain. We are in an economical descent etc.

This video also has strong statements about the police force. A colloquial name for the police is 'The Pigs'. So baring that in mind they use these characters in the video. 

The lead singer of Gallows is Frank Carter. Frank Carter is the epitome of a hardcore singer. He is an angry young man with multiple tattoos. Frank Carter used to be a tattoo artist before becoming a professional musician and has designed and drawn most of his own tattoo's. Each tattoo represents a story of his life.