AVOID Releases Music Video for “Gator Fest”

Heavy metal band AVOID released a live music video for their song “Gator Fest” off their 2022 album Cult Mentality last Monday. The video is part live performance, part cinematic nature documentary, taking viewers along with the members of the band as they deliver an energetic set and visit a wildlife center. Cuts of the band members petting alligators, holding snakes, and dramatic, chiaroscuro shots of reptiles intersperse fish-eye close ups and backlit panoramas of AVOID performing. In a particularly poignant juxtaposition, the video splices a video of a monkey doing a backflip with guitarist Nick Olson spinning on stage, and the lyric “Get me out of this hole I’m in” is repeatedly backdropped by a shots of vocalist Benny Scholl with his face poking out of various holes at the wildlife center.

The video creates an almost humorous setting for the fast-paced, edgy, fully screamed song. The alligators at the wildlife center become unwitting moshers to the heavy, relentless noise of “Gator Fest”, as frames of the reptiles swimming, crawling, and lazing about their enclosures quickly flash in and out between shots of the band in their own natural habitat. Lead vocalist Benny Scholl says, “I truly do think that this is a very cool take on what you would typically see from a video like this”. Certainly, AVOID has taken the genre of “live music video” in a new direction with this work. Check out the official video for “Gator Fest” on YouTube, and stream “Gator Fest” and Cult Mentality on Spotify.