Video Review: The White One Is Evil

[The White One Is Evil – Elliot Minor]

As the third and final single to be released, this shall be my third and final Elliot Minor based blog before the album…actually it won’t, I’ll be making another after my next EM concert.

But before that, in case you have missed my obsession, here is a short summary of background information.:
Alex Davies -- vocals, guitar, songwriter
Ed Minton -- vocals, guitar
Dan Hetherton -- drums, backing vocals
Ali Paul -- keyboard
Ed 'Teddy' Hetherton – bass

Formerly “The Academy’, Elliot Minor have currently released 2 singles, and a third [TWOIE] has the due date of the 29th October 2007, with an album scheduled for late November something. Currently, 26 songs have been recorded, but it has not been disclosed about which will appear on it.

An October tour is presently underway, and their first tour date as the band they now are [not including support acts] took place on the 19th May 2007 at the Cockpit in Leeds, supported by Shibby and *Armstrong.

Now Let’s Get Onto The Review…

The video was released on the 20th September, when the Kerrang! Channel added it to their play list, but it premiered at about 7.45am Friday 21st September, which is when I first saw it. Like with Parallel Worlds and Jessica we see a very unique style of video, but this one has a plot line, that is hard to understand and explain so I’m just going to talk you through the video.

It’s set in two places. One is a misty steamy forest type area. It’s all quite dark, but things are noticeable, for example Alex’s pick necklace [worn to most concerts and the York/Newcastle signings] or the fact that he’s got a heavy dark beard. Most of the camera work is between the vocalists: Ed and Alex, although we keep having flashes to Dan, Ali and Teddy.

The second scenario is quite different. The light house, present in the first set, becomes a tall old fashioned lantern; in this scene we only have Alex, but also a women dancer. She appears around him, dressed in a masquerade type fashion, and rather a mystery, dancing with her long dress or it may be a scarf; the whole darkness and quick movements make it hard to distinguish.

But how can this have a plot? Well, midway through, we have two more masqueraded people. There masks resembles birds as they appear with a brief case, of which a women climbs out of, also dressed rather classically, but wearing a fake head that appears to be a horse, adding more to the mystery of this video, before returning back into the small briefcase at the end.

Through out the song we also see others appear, for instance a man appears, accompanied by a black dog, who accidentally released some balloons [pictured below], and also a dining set table, where two people, also in masks are set. And a crow type oldish appearing woman, pushing along a pram of some form. Also a recurring theme is a bird cage, with a shadowy dark bird in it, again to go with the whole masquerade, classical theme that runs through out

Just before the conclusion of this video, the mist is a lot lighter, but still as thick. We’re left with an empty table, and a figure playing a grand piano, who appears to be Alex, but we can not be sure as the lack of colour and boundaries on him are unclear.

The ending, I assume, it played in reverse, where you see fog/dry-ice machines taking away the misty atmosphere. The band is revealed, along with stage crew and the mystery is revealed. But does it matter? No. It seems a very EM thing to do to show you it all, almost their style.

The video is currently not on youtube, otherwise I would have posted it here, but I’d say that if you can, go find it, or listen to the beginning of the track on their Myspace. Either way, it’s an amazing song, and such an amazing video that I Sky +ed it, and have been watching it on repeat, yet it’s not reached a stage where I hate it; I still find it utterly amazing.

Thanks For Reading.x