Seeming’s New Video for “Reality Is Afraid” Balances Sorrow and Hope

Seeming’s new album, The Birdwatcher’s Guide to Atrocity, is a hymnal of hope and despair. Between the two, musician Alex Reed has written a new LP that will be out on August 21st via Artoffact Records. Reed hones in on that delicate balance between pop and goth music throughout the album, akin to artists such as Trent Reznor, Diamanda Galás, Blanck Mass, or The Knife who can easily swing from intensity to vulnerability within the span of a song. Reed says:

“The album is about the struggle to remain alive and sane while coping with Earth’s insanity and cruelty. But it also brims with reminders of how to survive another day.”

The video for “Reality is Afraid” feels like a observation on the idea of time—or the lack thereof in a post-quarantine world. Reed is shown in a heavily wooded forest, completely isolated from any other form of life. The video speeds up and slows down, causing his movements to be choppy as he sings: We lost track of all our damage / So what’s another sting or body frozen / When every scar is our advantage? / And if we’ve already died / What’s the turning of a tide? Nothing. The world is scarred and reality is terrifying—what can we do, if anything, to stop it? The Birdwatcher’s Guide to Atrocity offers a bit of solace in a fractured world, a collection of songs that can temporarily assuage the anguish of our tumultuous reality.

You can preorder Seeming’s album The Birdwatcher’s Guide to Atrocity here.