A young man’s addiction breeds madness in Iceage’s vivid new video for “Pain Killer,” their collaborative song with Sky Ferreira.
The clip opens with the protagonist suffering an injury at a construction site. He wakes up in the hospital with a head injury, and the doctors hand over some painkillers before he reenters the world. From there, the character jumps off a bridge, floats in mid-air, frantically drives his car and repeatedly spits out pools of blood.
Throughout are several animated, psychedelic interludes full of rainbows, butterflies and bloodshot eyes. Ferreira pops up in a brief cameo, performing the song opposite Iceage in a grainy, VHS-quality split-screen.
The horn-fueled “Pain Killer” appears on the Danish post-punk band’s fourth LP, 2018’s Beyondless, which also features the tracks “Under the Sun,” “The Day the Music Dies,” “Take It All,” “Catch It” and “Broken Hours” (the latter a bonus track on the Japanese edition). Since issuing that album, they released the single “Balm of Gilead” on a split seven-inch with previous tour mates the Black Lips.
Iceage will continue to promote Beyondless on a North American tour that kicks off Friday, April 12th in Las Vegas, Nevada.