Arcade Fire Share A Hybrid Live-Action And Animated Video For ‘Chemistry’

It’s been nearly a year since Arcade Fire released Everything Now, their fifth studio album that received a mixed critical reception. Some of that had to do with their bizarre “fake news” promotional campaign, but beyond it all, while the album has its ups and downs, there are definitely some interesting moments within. One of those is “Chemistry,” for which the band has just released a kooky new video.

The clip is a collaboration with director Ray Tintori and Starburns Industries, the latter being the production company best known for Rick And Morty. The video stars a bunch of animals (with animated cartoon heads on live-action human bodies) at a wedding. A dog and a cat fall for each other, but the cat is supposed to be marrying a shark. Some people at the festivities take exception to this, which leads to some pretty over-the-top fight scenes.

Win Butler says of the video:

“We’ve been big fans of Ray’s work since his early videos and there was talk of collaborating during The Suburbs shoot — we were going to film it in New Orleans but then it got moved to Austin at the last minute, and Ray was caught up working on Beasts Of The Southern Wild. So it was very full circle to finally be working with him in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. There is a playful, carnivalesque energy to the song; to capture that by filming literally during carnival felt right.”

Watch the “Chemistry” video above, and revisit our review of Everything Now here.

Everything Now is out now via Columbia. Get it here.

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