Pianos Become The Teeth Don’t Mess Around with These Two ‘Repine’ Videos (First Look)

by Ken Partridge

Some songs are too intense and mysterious to inspire single music videos.more

"Repine," the latest from Pianos Become The Teeth, is one of these songs.

The Baltimore post-hardcore fivesome has rolled out two clips for this beautifully brooding tune, and we're honored to premiere them below. Both star lead singer Kyle Durfey as man with a lot on his mind, and in the first, he spends much of the five-minute runtime sawing and sanding, building a kind of artsy gallows he winds up setting alight. When he's not woodworking, he's clutching a couple of bricks and walking along the bottom of a pool, balancing out all the fire imagery with intimations of drowning.

The companion piece mostly focuses on Durfey singing the song, though there are still glimpses of him underwater. As the band tells NYLON Guys, the videos are meant to be "visually appealing but also somewhat withdrawn in their delivery." They should also be watched back to back.

"It should be looked at less as 'two versions' for the same song and more like two perspectives taking place at the same time," the band says. "The narrative can be looked at as the inner perspective of the song. This video's imagery deals with several themes that are present in the song’s lyrics as well as the overall weight of the song musically. The performance video can be looked at as the outer perspective, much more contemplative and subdued. In this version we see less movement, more thought, and a more personal look into the person rather than the song itself. One could argue that the narrative is what Kyle is contemplating in the performance.

"Our director, Tyler Davis, really captured the spirit of the song in his visual presentation of it. Each shot represents the tone of the song without being too literal. The slow-motion shots act to make the viewer concentrate on each movement, especially in the close-up shots that may have been overlooked had they been at a normal speed."

"Repine" appears on the dark, majestic, notably scream-free Keep You, which arrived earlier this year on Epitaph. Catch the band on tour this month and into December with Circa Survive and Title Fight.