The pathetic fallacy refers to the human desire to give weather or places meaning according to a current state of emotion. I.E. if you get laid and the birds are chirping, bees are buzzing and the taco truck is open. Or, for SA post-punkers Lung Overcoat, it’s ascribing your gloom to a grand, abandoned building.
The video for Lung Overcoat’s “Past Lives” begins with a vaguely Lynchian opening screen before cutting to frontman Chris Smart and company posting up in their dilapidated palace. With a spire of unruly hair, Smart sings in a baritone, his slurred lyrics courtesy of an unmoving jaw. Between the teenagers creeping around in rubble, fright-night keyboards and the found footage quality of the Super 8, “Past Lives” maintains a certain Halloween vibe. But the most hair-raising part of the ’84 effort is the loop on Smart’s lyrics, repeating “are here” into the empty walls of their mausoleum.
This article appears in The Growing Pains Of SA’s Tattoo Community.