Watch Garbage’s Apocalyptic ‘No Horses’ Video
Garbage visualize the apocalypse in a visually arresting video for “No Horses.” Singer Shirley Manson washes the blood from drummer-producer Butch Vig’s feet and stares ominously from under a bold red hood.
Director Scott Stuckey, creator of indie-punk children’s show Pancake Mountain, underscores Manson’s brooding lyrics with an unnerving montage of riots, landfills, surgeries, starving children and police-protestor conflicts. “There will be no cops, just men with guns,” the vocalist intones over throbbing synthesizers. “In their shiny black uniforms and their big black boots/ With their shiny black batons and their sleek black cars/ With their fingers on the trigger.”
Stuckey addressed the clip’s political themes in a statement. “It’s been my observation that when governments disregard their citizens for their own greed, the ensuing soundtrack usually kicks ass. Like Nina Simone’s ‘Mississippi Goddam’ or the Clash’s ‘Straight to Hell,’ ‘No Horses’ made me realize that I’m not going insane, these really are fucked up times. The lyrics are powerful so the challenge was to add something visually that wouldn’t ruin the individual’s interpretation.”
“No Horses,” which Garbage issued last month, follows the band’s 2016 LP, Strange Little Birds. They also recently released an autobiographical coffee table book, This Is the Noise That Keeps Me Awake. The band is currently touring with Blondie on a co-headlining summer jaunt that concludes August 12th in Dallas.