Published on Aug 22, 2005
The music of Drop The Fear has strong visual characteristics.
The atmospheric nature of the record, and the fluidity with which
varying moods and sounds are meticulously pieced together on a huge
canvas — that is, the album — of strange but interesting
imageries almost give away the fact that Drop The Fear is more than
just an audio project.
The limited edition DVD of Drop The Fear’s self-titled debut LP
gives the band members a medium to flaunt their skills in visual
art and offers a closer look at what the project of Drop The Fear
actually is.
The DVD is divided into three chapters: “A Visual
Interpretation,” “Questioning Fear,” and “Behind It All.”
“A Visual Interpretation,” is literally a visual accompaniment
to the music of the album, song by song, although whether — as the
band claims — these visual images are indeed interpretations of
the music going on in the background is questionable.
The images are basically everyday stuff captured on a video
camera, with graphics and other sorts of manipulating agents added
to it for effect. Most are shots of random objects, like a lone
wireless antenna-tower, a drunken man, a plane taking off or the
brightly shining sun, random things that one might capture while
driving on the road, of things moving in the opposite
direction.
The photography, though amateurish, is great, and along with the
crazy add-on graphics and almost audacious use of colors, gives a
psychedelic visual form to the rather estranged — and strangely
emotional — music. But, here is where it all starts to hurt.
The camera-work, however adept, makes the whole visual trip
through the record seem like watching a home movie for two reasons.
Though there are glimpses of a Michel Gondry video seen in plenty
of the shots, they still lack the professional edge, because of the
camera used that was strictly meant for shooting home-movies. There
is no drastic difference in the visuals from one song to another,
and the strong identities of the songs and the uniqueness of each
one of them are undermined by the same kind of imageries repeated
from song to song. As a result, there really seems to be no
specific interpretation for each song, which does not do justice to
the sense of individualism that each number carries with
itself.
The second chapter, called “Questioning Fear,” is an interview
of the band-members on their interpretations of fear. Also, it has
various interviews — conducted by the band itself — of arbitrary
strangers (encountered on the band’s road-trip) on their
interpretation of what fear is. Excerpts from these interviews can
be found on the record as sound-bytes on various cuts. The
interview sessions (with the band and by the band) yield Pink
Floyd-ish quotes like “Change is difficult, scary and
uncomfortable,” and gives food for thought — that is, if you are
into the concept of fear and the philosophies associated with
it.
The third chapter, “Behind It All,” makes absolutely no sense at
all, since it indeed is a home movie by the band members, catching
them doing things that are not particularly interesting. It
wouldn’t have mattered at all if this chapter were left out of the
rest of the DVD.
Drop The Fear is an immensely talented band, and this
experimental visual project is an accompaniment to one of the
greatest — and most creative — albums in recent times. The genius
of the music demands a more thoughtful visual manifestation, and
though the movie is stimulating, it is just not enough for the
soundtrack. It so happens that the band-members are smarter
musicians than they are cinematographers.
[For more information on Drop The Fear, visit
www.dropthefear.com]