Good day, BMTH fans.
Here’s to wishing all of us on the west side of the pond good fortune and an ice pack, because after the metaphorical burn this breakdown carries with it, we're gonna need it.
In case any of y’all are living under a rock, BMTH released a new song and video titled “MANTRA” on Aug 24th, and I’m literally shaking with excitement. A new release is almost always cause enough for a celebration, but this song is so perfect that it deserves a fucking parade.
I want to start this off by saying this piece is by no means a comprehensive analysis of the lyrics and video—it would take a lot more than a couple hours three shots of espresso to get through everything this band has given us to work with. I'd also like to add that, my personal feelings about religion aside, this is not meant to come off as me shitting on anyone's spiritual beliefs. You do you, boo boo. That being said, let's get right to it:
The video starts up with about 30 seconds of pure, aggressive instrumentals with a series of visuals that are flipping on a TV screen like a slideshow. The visuals include one-second glimpses at cloaked figures with masks, a man screaming at the camera, cultists dancing in a circle, people swaying in prayer, drug-induced bliss, people with marks carved in their foreheads carrying firearms, and a girl having a seizure in a chair. It's all very Charles Manson and "Jonestown" right off the bat.
The beat drops about halfway through, where we get more glimpses at a man on fire, a cartoon ghost dancing, cars flipping over, a tarantula, a nuclear explosion, puppets, a laughing clown (fml), exotic dancers, some fucking sharks, and my personal favorite, a "Take Control" ad featuring a dancing dude on the TV. It's pure and utter chaos wrapped in bright lights and enigmas. We're fortunately able to revisit most of these images later in the video, but the chaotic nature of the intro effectively communicates that it's time to buckle the fuck up, because we're about to go for one hell of a wild ride.
The lyrics start up with "Do you wanna start a cult with me // I'm not vibrating like I ought to be," where we're given our first look at frontman Oli Sykes sitting in a chair looking high off his rocker staring at the TV. He appears to be suffering from a drug-induced lethargy, and comes off as very unhinged and reclusive. The line referencing the level of "vibrating" he ought to be brings up the question of to whose standards is he measuring himself?
He continues with "I need a purpose // I can't keep surfing through this existential misery," at which point another ad on TV appears, displaying the words "existential misery" across the screen. The positioning of Oli, the ad and the lyrics indicate that the "misery" he's referring to is whatever appears on TV, implying that the material we see in our everyday lives directly fuels our spiritual and existential shortcomings.
The song continues, "Now, we're gonna need some real estate // But if I choose my words carefully // Think I could fool you that I'm the guru // Wait, how do you spell "epiphany"?" At this point, we see that Oli (now a cult leader) has gained a couple of followers who wish to set up a compound to further their "spiritual" endeavors. However, the next line, which blatantly addresses the audience as "fools" for Oli to manipulate, suggests that this endeavor is less about providing for those in need, and more about targeting vulnerable individuals with the intent to satisfy a personal power-hungry agenda.
Taking a bit of real-world context to address these lines, manipulators in general are typically charming and charismatic individuals, as are most domestic abusers. It's a mind game that they play, where they enjoy "fooling" the general public into thinking they're some great (or damn near holy) individual that can do no wrong, because it deifies them in the way they're treated by others. His statement demonstrates that he acknowledges the fact that he's manipulating others, but it's all in accordance with the way he should be "vibrating," or as I prefer to interpret, the extent to which he is revered and sought after (like the way a popular person's phone is always vibrating with notifications).
We get our first taste of the chorus, which starts off with "Before the truth will set you free // It'll piss you off // Before you find a place to be // You're gonna lose the plot." Here, we see Oli has turned into a charismatic figure who has risen from one follower to dozens in what's portrayed as a matter of seconds. We see a scene of prayer and meditation, which feels like a manipulative tactic advertised to fill the "void."
We get to see cultists dancing again, followed by a shot of the cult positioned on a staircase behind its leader. The final lines of the chorus play in the background ("Too late to tell you now // One ear and right out the other one // Cause all you ever do is chant the same old mantra,"), and we get our first look at the MANTRA drug on TV. We'll explore the significance of this later, but the important takeaway at this moment is that the experimental drug is apparently what (according to the ad) makes the cultists so enlightened. The word "mantra" in the chorus is voiced over by a robotic audio, which I have some thoughts for down the road.
There's a period of pure power instrumentals between the chorus and second verse, where we get to see the rest of the band center-stage in the cult house with red masks over their eyes to match the cult leader's attire. We glimpse back at the cult on the staircase, which is now filled with smoke behind a mischievous-looking Oli. The parishioners are shown to be delirious and "blinded" by the smokescreen, and Oli's demeanor comes off as demonic, or at the very least non-human. It implies that the cult leader himself is the evil figure in this story, but I'm not sure he's the ultimate evil that the video targets.
The second verse starts up with, "Could I have your attention, please // It's time to tap into your tragedy." My first reaction to watching this scene was actually to infer a connection between Oli's cult-leader persona and The Catholic Church. We see him sitting on an luxurious chair (like the Pope), dressed in red (like the Cardinals) and he's decorated in ornate, gold bling, much akin to the extravagance and wealth that the Church conveys. His elevation above the crowd with parishioners positioned below with arms outstretched communicates a power dynamic laced with aggression and dominance.
The next line referencing tragedy clearly coveys the manipulative nature of organized religion, but more pointedly, at televangelists and evangelicals. If you've ever spent even 5 minutes watching that "700 Club" show on TV, you'd know that it's basically full of people expressing the dog-shit horrible things they've experienced, and how finding Jesus turned their life around. Seriously... the 5 minute bit I watched was a woman who had been molested as a child, pimped out as a teenager, physically abused by every male in her life, and was then kidnapped and raped repeatedly for months before finally escaping.
These type of stories imply that the horrendous misfortunes people experience are caused by their lack of faith. It's a tool that transfers culpability and responsibility from perpetrators to victims, and further demeans people as objects in a "grander" scheme as opposed to individuals with personal agency.
The scene with the girl in the chair directly speaks to this invasion and exploitation of misfortune by introducing the guilt-complex, or the "you need me in order to be okay" paradigm. The lyrics open with, "think you could use a new abuser," and flip to Oli acting as a pseudo-therapist with less than honorable intentions. Oli then has the girl re-live her tragedy, only to chastise her ("what were you thinking?"), and then ends the session ("that's all the time we have this week") to imply that the girl will need to keep coming back and suffering through this new abuse to become "enlightened."
We continue into the second chorus, where we're shown clips of news footage, protests and a growing military presence in response to the cult. The screen flips back to the screaming cultists with guns, who are clearly willing to die for their religion. The man in the center has a gas mask and points to the camera, almost as if to say "we're coming for you." This communicates an "us vs. them" scenario, but it's a bit unclear which side the audience is on based on the video's arguments thus far.
Having grown up in Texas and living a few short hours from Waco (or as we dis-affectionately call it, "Wacko"), this scene gives me very strong David Koresh and Branch Davidian vibes. We get another series of images and clips demonstrating euphoria, strobe lights, possessed-looking movements and violence, adding to the chaos and instability portrayed throughout the video.
We blaze right into the bridge, with the lyrics, "And I know this doesn't make a lot of sense // But do you really wanna think all by yourself now? // All I'm asking for is a little bit of faith // You know it's easy to believe." Now I don't know about y'all, but I don't think they can get any more clear about their argument regarding the lack of personal agency in institutions built on faith. The video itself shows Oli sitting in front of several TV monitors witnessing the backlash to his cult. In the background, we see a woman wearing leather lingerie with a lamp shade over her head, and a light illuminating under the shade. This imagery could stand to imply that the light, or rather knowledge, is shielded by the shade like blinders over the eyes. Simultaneously, the exposed nature of her body communicates that, in a religious setting, her body (sexuality) is more important than her intellect. Where her thinking is inhibited, her figure is put on display.
Oli then ODs on the MANTRA drug, which is labelled "not for human consumption." The significance of the OD (aside from the fact that it's the catalyst for the mass murder/suicide that follows) is that, throughout the video, the drug is advertised as the agent by which individuals achieve spiritual nirvana. In essence, Oli's death was viewed by the parishioners as a "sacrifice," or a leap of faith in the name of spiritual salvation.
The lady who helped Oli organize the cult finds him dead, and at the funeral, she passes the MANTRA drug to everyone else in the cult and instructs them to follow in their leaders' footsteps by taking the leap of faith.
As the chorus makes its final entry, the parishioners each take the deadly drug, and are then made victims of its horrible side effects. The interesting thing about the timing is that, rather than having the cultists take the drug when Oli is singing about needing "faith," they chose to run this scene when the lyrics actually take a step back from the story to directly address the audience. The chorus doesn't share the same voice or narrative as the rest of the song, as it pulls us out of the plot to essentially condemn our own choices when they're made based on faith alone. In a way, this framing communicates that, when individuals choose faith over thinking a situation out for themselves, they're effectively ingesting their own figurative MANTRA drug, and consequently become the agents of their own destruction.
Also noteworthy of the final chorus is that, for the final utterance of the "mantra" lyric, Oli himself is momentarily revived to lean forward towards the camera, stare directly into our souls, and mouth the lyric with the robotic voice. Note: we should all feel very attacked right now.
Right here, in this moment, we get a clear picture of where the audience stands throughout this video. In that second, we became the objects (or "cultists") of which Oli speaks, and the ensuing death and destruction (which was self-inflicted on the part of the parishioners) is a metaphorical glimpse of what we have to look forward to. Or perhaps literal. Who knows, these evangelicals might bring back the "kool-aid" and poison our water supply more than it already has been.
After everyone has been left dead and dismembered, the camera moves back to Oli's casket, and we see his corpse grin before the screen fades to black, giving us one last piece to suggest that the goal of these organizations and these charismatic leaders is not to provide for the community, but to feed one's own power and self interests.
It wasn't until the final chorus, but I'm 99% sure that the audio clip that says "mantra" throughout the video is American Siri, which is an important distinction to make as the band hails from the UK. Further regarding the "mantra" lyric, the use of a robotic voice speaks to the artificial nature of the rituals and practices of Christian communities in the United States. The cold and monotone voice sonically creates a barrier between what we're seeing (the different people mouthing "mantra,") and the truth, which is that the voice itself is without a personality, without an identity, and is homogeneous across the board, even if the exterior is different.
To sum up, BMTH basically just ripped our country up one side and down the other in the most brilliant of ways. It's powerful, it's antagonizing, it's condemning, but most importantly, it's deliciously condescending in the only way the Brits can really pull off. The best criticisms come through artistic mediums, and I for one am ecstatic about hearing what else Amo has to offer on January 11th.
Good day, and God Save The Queen!
