Analysis of 'Everything Everything - Arch Enemy' Music Video

Everything Everything is a rock band in the art rock sub-genre and the music video for their song 'Arch Enemy' is very much a reflection of the band's genre due to the unconventional subject matter and the way the band personify the waste society creates. In this genre, artists place a higher value on making artistic statements and experimentation than on easy listening and these values are exhibited in the song and consequently its video. The primary subject of the video is a large monster in a sewer system, which is identified as a fatberg during the shot accompanying the lyric 'Fatberg, you smile' where the computer generated monster does a menacing grin at the camera. In the lyrics, this creature is given other names like 'sphinx of grease' and 'blubber mount'.

This is an example of how the visuals of music videos will often build on imagery present in the lyrics. The singer describes a worshipped creature made of 'blubber' and thus the corresponding video presents a gigantic and disgusting creature surrounded by hoards of globular worshippers - presumably also made of thrown away fat.

The music video also demonstrates the aspect of artist performance by including clips of the band's lead vocalist, Jonathon Higgs, lip syncing to the vocals in the song. Through the use of a green screen, he is placed within the CGI sewer scene with fat blob creatures dancing in the background behind him. By showing the artist performing but in the setting of the sewer, the video strikes a balance between star image and the narrative present in the song.

As for technical aspects, it is evident that the producers of the video used lighting to make the combination of the CGI and green screen footage more authentic. They appear to have set up a bright light, positioned above and to the right of Higgs, to mimic the harsh lighting in the sewer scene and create the illusion that there is a single, bright light source (the grate in the ceiling) which casts shadows on Higgs and the creatures behind him. Furthermore, to make the lighting even more believable, they have used colour (either through a yellow light source or through colour grading) to further match the lighting of the live action shots to the CGI background. This adds an additional layer of immersion to help the audience suspend their disbelief.

The visuals of the video are related to the song in more than just the lyrics too. The pace of the video is well matched to the rhythm of the music. A prime example of this is during the instrumental break towards the end of the song, where the producers of the video match the build up of the instruments to a build of liquid fat/sewage, which gradually fills the sewer until both the music and the visuals climax with the sewage exploding out of the ground the flooding the city.

This ending of the video fits very well to the ending of the song as it ends on the lyric 'It's time to show your face!' and the flooding of the city represents this as the fatberg monster is metaphorically showing its face above ground, forcing its creators to face the consequences of their wasteful lifestyle. This is an example of how visual interpretations of song lyrics in music videos can be both direct, as with the smiling fatberg, and indirect as shown by this metaphor.