Led by frontwoman Daiana Feuer and comprised of a constantly rotating cast of collaborators, musicians, and friends in a configuration that can vary between three and 12 different members, the Los Angeles, CA-based band Bloody Death Skull not only will likely win an award for best Halloween-themed band name in recent memory, the members of the band consider the band a wild fusion between performance art project and actual band. Sonically and aesthetically, the band has received attention for employing the chord progressions and song structures of early rock, R&B and soul, unusual instrumentation including ukulele, toys and other instrumentation, a punk rock sensibility and taboo-breaking lyrics focusing on love, daydreams, the cosmos, television, dead things, cute things (sometimes dead, cute things), existential crises and being a perpetual teenager forever.
Clocking in at 139 seconds, “Betsy’s Back” off the band’s The Haunting of Bloody Death Skull EP sounds as though it could have been released in 1962 as the single features hand clap-led percussion, jangling guitar chords, a propulsive and rollicking rhythm section, bratty yet incredibly infectious melodies, a blistering early rock, guitar solo with Feuer’s sultry and ominous vocals that give a mischievous song an underlying sense of swaggering menace as Betsy has come back to get bloody revenge on those who have wronged her.
Shot and edited by the band’s Daiana Feuer, the recently released music video for the song employs the use of dolls in stop-motion animation. As Feuer explains in press notes, “The dolls reunited in my video for “Girls Like You” are reunited in “Betsy’s Back,” along with some new friends. The tall girl is the video’s star. I found her at the Rose Bowl flea market. There she was, lying on a pile of partially dismembered vintage dolls. It was love at first sight. Her stare is so expressive, and even her toes wiggle. I shot the video in the mountains of Big Bear, standing in three feet of snow for the most part. It was definitely cold but I kept the dolls drunk on whiskey and they didn’t complain. That’s also probably why they had so much fun.” And as a result, the video is a gloriously weird and funny romp that manages to fit perfectly with the song.
