Photo by Jack Trapper

Justice Tripp goes to the gym, and it shows. No, not just in the looking built and the getting jacked way, but in his understanding of how the culture is truly the epicenter of American culture’s most strangest human behaviors. There’s the wannabe influencers who can’t workout without their tripods nearby. There’s those who invest their entire self-worth into their superficiality. There’s the competitive bodybuilder types hellbent on defying the aging process (though their tanning habits and PEDs may beg to differ…) The young men who turn to the goal of gains as their mental health solution rather than booking an appointment with a therapist? They’re there and they’re doubling down on the ‘roids, too, more than ever these days. Even the trophy stay-at-home trad wife who counts her appointment with her trainer as part of her job is a weird thing we have normalized.

All of these characters come out to play in the music video for “DU$T”, the latest preview of hardcore-gone-gonzo from the Baltimore boundary-breakers’ new album, COLD 2 THE TOUCH. One part psychedelic art-pop trip, one part very aggressive blastbeats and breakdowns, the lyrics only really speak to the plot in microcosmic allegory terms: Tripps’s baby went to the other side, he’s got no signs of life to keep on living, and now he’s become the kind of person he never thought he would. In other words, everybody’s searching for that something to fill a void. Maybe it’s clout. Maybe it’s attention. Maybe it’s to compensate for something else we’re lacking, a distraction from death, the thoughts beating you down in your head, having to sit alone with yourself, or living up to someone else’s expectations. Whatever the reason, Angel Du$t know that the biggest freaks out there aren’t always the ones with the strangest faces. It’s sometimes those sculpted into the pursuit of outward perfection who are on an entirely different surface of reality, and can’t even recognize it themselves.

Directed by: Blaise Cepis

Angel Du$t’s COLD 2 THE TOUCH will be released February 13th on Run for Cover Records.