Crystal Stilts’ “Star Crawl” sounds like a love song sludging its way through a long week at a day job: the thick guitars and the droning beats, and vocalist Brad Hargett’s drawling chorus: I’m too tired, baby, come on, I’m too tired, baby, come on.
It’s paired in the official video with slow motion footage of normal scenes all painted handily with a psychedelic paint brush, matching the dour desperation with scenes that you make you blink and shake your head and wonder if you’re maybe a little too tired, too. The humdrum everyday of exhaustion in the lyrics is nothing like the fantastical world of the video, and that pushes the official video along, too, that dichotomy of our everyday — I’m too tired, baby, come on — with pink skies and blue ground and green birds*.
(* Psychedelia may not appear in exact colors described.)
It’s a trip, and it’s an escape, and it’s a weirdly terrifying and perfect piece of art.