Speedy Ortiz, “Raising the Skate”

Post Author: Niccolo Porcello

Speedy Ortiz have released a video for “Raising the Skate“, one of the punchiest tracks off of their recent Foil Deer. The video, directed by Casey Herz, depicts a particularly macabre evening dinner party in a large and spooky house. The three non-Dupuis members of Speedy all succumb to various downfalls the house has to offer: there are deaths by pool cue, killer spaghetti(!?), and a bowie knife of sorts. Dupuis has stated that the video is a direct reference to Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s cult classic Hausu, but visually, the video looks something like a Refn film, which is to say its all reds and blues and greens, all strikingly saturated. It’s a band-dinner murder mystery night gone wrong—goofy enough to be fun to watch but well enough made that its clear the video wasn’t a throwaway. Having Dupuis be the only one that makes it out alive is a nice touch, especially considering the subject matter of “Raise the Skate”—she is “the boss, the caller of the shots,”and sometimes that means having to kill your zombified drummer! It happens.

You can watch the video above. Foil Deer is out now.