The cult, with its siren-song of certainty, is but destiny’s counterfeit coin: it offers the illusion of freedom while binding the spirit in invisible chains. To join is to surrender doubt, that fertile soil of wisdom, and to embrace a borrowed dream. Yet the question persists: can we mere players in a theatre of inherited myths break free from these architects of belief? Or are we condemned, by some ancient clockwork, to repeat the cycle of master and disciple, shepherd and flock?
Ex-Hyena’s latest vision arrives cloaked in ritual and rhythm, a feverish broadcast from the underbelly of devotion. Their new single, This Is Your Love, already a high-energy EBM mind-racer, finds its mirror in a music video that dares to ask whether freedom can exist in the arms of control. Inspired by personal experiences, Boston’s nightlife, and cult documentaries like Twin Flame Universe and Seduced: Inside The Nxivm Cult, the song’s obsession with manipulation and destiny finds a vivid stage.
Directed, shot, and edited by Reuben Bettsak, the film projects the allure and menace of belief systems dressed up as salvation. The video stands as a natural extension of the track, expanding its fever into the visual language of secrecy and submission. Figures in robes move through darkened rooms, anonymous and ominous, casting the aura of secrecy around a dynamic cast. The frame breathes tension, yet slips into humour – the video knows the campy side of ritual performance, embracing silliness while never letting go of its bleaker message. The cult becomes both carnival and caution, a place where promise is entwined with exploitation.
There is allure in the dance of ritual, the promise of belonging, the intoxicating hum of group belief. But beneath the robes and gestures lurks the danger of surrendering autonomy. Ex-Hyena holds the lens steady on that contradiction, turning their song into both a celebration of energy and a warning about the cost of devotion.
In a world of uncertainty, cults have such a mass appeal to those afraid of their futures, wanting a sense of community and communal rituals to feel a place in the universe. What happens when our best interests are supplanted by the power-hungry willing to blackmail us…or worse?
Watch the video for “This is Your Love” below:
Ex-Hyena’s music draws from multiple cultural remnants: disco’s glitter, already tarnished by commodification; the drifting excesses of psychedelia; and the corroded clang of industrial machinery. These fragments are not mere ornament but stitched together through syncopation and repetition: mechanisms that compel attention and participation. What emerges is not designed for casual consumption or polite diversion; it rejects the frameworks of brunch culture and commercialized nightlife. Instead, it constructs a space closer to a bunker, where sound functions less as entertainment than as confrontation. The imagery of their performance underscores this point: light is not a promise of escape but a failure; a blinking exit sign above a crowd enclosed in darkness. In this sense, Ex-Hyena’s work reflects the broader social landscape, where cultural production bears the imprint of late capitalism’s decay, yet also hints at resistance through its very refusal of sanctioned forms of pleasure.
This Is Your Love was recorded by Bo Barringer and Reuben Bettsak, produced by Bo Barringer, and mixed and mastered by Adam Stilson at Decade Music Studios. Ex-Hyena has shared the stage with contemporaries such as Korine, Haunt Me, Traitrs, Blood Handsome, Harsh Symmetry, Komrads, and others.
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