In keeping with my newfound traditions of saying nice things about Gwar in the intros to these posts, the music-related video I enjoyed most this week was this, the YouTube commercial for Gwar’s Gwar-B-Q festival, which includes one of Dave Brockie’s final performances under all that latex. Gwar-B-Q goes down 8/16 in Richmond, and it has Hatebreed and Body Count on the bill. It is the only music festival I will be attending this summer. Anyway, on to this week’s videos.

5. Higgins Waterproof Black Magic Band – “Mad Lifeline” (Dir. Tunde Adebimpe)

This is overlong and pretentious and indulgent as all fuck, but it also works as a deep dive into the dreamlife of one of indie rock’s greatest stars, and it has legitimately spooky skull-mask fuckers. In a week without that many great videos, that’s good enough for #5.

4. Only Real – “Cadillac Girl” (Dir. Jack Newman)

I find Only Real to be a deeply irritating presence, like King Krule if he was way too convinced of his own goofy charm, or Mac DeMarco if he was a British rap dork. And yet I can’t hate this video, which has some of the drunk summertime-fun vibes of, say, Len’s “Steal My Sunshine.”

3. Elbow – “My Sad Captains” (Dir. Mark Thomas)

Kids in dance class are the cutest motherfuckers on planet earth, especially when they can’t quite follow along with the choreography in time. And the proud-parent facial expressions here, as a proud parent myself, are food for the soul. This video doesn’t have much to do with the song, but it made me feel good.

2. Hercules And Love Affair – “I Try To Talk To You” (Feat. John Grant) (Dir. David Wilson)

Who says romance is dead?

1. Trash Talk x Flatbush Zombies – “97.92” (Dir. Pier Pictures & APLUSFilmz)

Once upon a time, music videos would spring forth from advances in filmmaking technology, and those advances would fuel the ideas behind the video. (Think of the morphing in “Black Or White,” or the live-action/animation rotoscoping happening in “Take On Me.”) This video exists because someone figured out that, if you put a 360-degree camera on a remote-controlled drone, you could take the fisheye-lens visual-distortion principle to freaky, hallucinatory new levels. It just looks awesome.