In the tradition of posting horror shorts, here at The Scariest Things, we have a variant of the horror short: The Horror Music Video.
If asked to identify what music would get associated with horror, most people would immediately associate the sound of heavy metal. Or… maybe Michael Jackson, when you are considering horror music videos (Still the gold standard forty years later). Enter emerging Seattle dream-pop singer/songwriter Natalie Lew, the mastermind behind Sea Lemon, whose latest single “Vaporized” is a rumination of night terrors and the inability to shake them. It’s all wrapped in a package of effervescent pop with echo-laden vocals that do indeed invoke dreams. So forget the thrash, and embrace the shimmer.
The instantly catchy chorus masks some fearful undertones. Our narrator is struggling with ripped-from-the-headlines dreams of drowning, burial, and vaporization. Her waking thoughts try to shake it off, but by the end of the song, it is still a work in progress. The nightmares are certainly persistent. Stylistically, the languid pace of dreampop has a way of keeping just a little bit of distance between the music and the listener. It’s a beckoning song, drawing you in, but keeping you at a slight distance. Such is the way of dreams, no?
In the just-released music video, the imagery cobbles together some instantly recognizable imagery from a roster of great horror films. An axe-wielding masked killer. The salt summoning circle. The mirror with inconsistent reflections. The stumbling final girl chase. Halloween and Leslie Vernon come immediately to mind, with elements of Eyes Without A Face, Candyman, with A Dark Song mixed in. It packs a lot into its short four-minute run time.
The director, Otium, knows his horror tropes for sure! I certainly applaud the use of the Dario Argento deep red saturated elements of the 4th verse.
This is the second horror-themed song from Sea Lemon, as the 2022 single “Cellar” retreated into the cellar of a serial killer. So, this is not a one-shot trip to the macabre. With Vaporized we got a proper sequel. And I would suggest that this time the sequel is better than the original. Alice Cooper and Iron Maiden are still relevant for the bombast of the brute force horror of the ’70s and ’80s, but perhaps Sea Lemon represents the current wave of more poetic and subtle horror approaches of the current wave of independent horror.
Here is the full music video:
[Verse 1]
Do you ever feel like you’re fallin’?
I know I do
My body gets stuck underwater
I’m turning blue
[Verse 2]
And I know that I say that I’m fine, but I won’t lie
It sticks with you
Try hard to remember I’m happy
Yeah, I’m trying to
[Chorus]
I thought he was buried alive
Out of my mind
I thought she was vaporized
Out of my mind
Out of my mind
Out of my mind
[Verse 3]
Sometimes when I struggle to sleep I
Look up the news
See someone was caught in a landslide
Ripped them in two
[Verse 4]
And I toss, and I turn, and I’m scared
Yeah, I won’t lie
It sticks with you
Try hard to remember I’m happy
Yeah, I’m trying to
[Chorus]
I thought he was buried alive
Out of my mind
I thought she was vaporized
Out of my mind
Out of my mind
Out of my mind
[Chorus]
I thought he was buried alive
Out of my mind
I thought she was vaporized
Out of my mind
Out of my mind
Out of my mind
You can find Sea Lemon’s entire song catalog on Spotify.
If you would like to see Sea Lemon perform live in concert, Natalie will be in Portland at the Mississippi Studios on August 28, and in San Francisco’s Cafe du Nord on August 30.
Yeah, I won’t lie… it sticks with you.