Whatever aspersions some critics have wanted to cast at Biters for being a throwback band — i.e. dated or out of touch — have mostly been negated by the band’s sheer exuberance and authenticity. Throughout their rise, the group has embraced and embodied just about every (some would say misogynist) rock and roll trope, but their freewheeling spirit and infectious fuck all attitude have made their excesses easy to overlook. “Want to take this shit too seriously? That’s on you,” the bands seems to say. “Biters are here to party.”
One of the main tools the band has used to catapult themselves to success have been their videos. Working with director Video Rahim and producer Ashley Simpson, Biters have been able to channel their debauchery into over the top yet irrefutably fun visuals that have resonated with fans and led the band to be hailed in some circles as reclaimers of rock’s past glory.
With “Low Lives in Hi Definition,” Biters seem intent on pushing that message even further. The video features the band performing onstage surrounded by television sets, most of them with playing only static. There’s plenty of pyrotechnics, a laser-shooting robot, and a bit of Miley Cyrus mocking, all while the band does their best to align themselves with the forces of KISS. Lyrically, frontman Tuk Smith takes on our consumerist, celebrity-obsessed culture, painting the band as the antithesis — perhaps even the antidote to — the blind worship of money, consumption and fame. As a statement of rebellion, it’s fine, if a bit overwrought and overdone.
Larger issues, however, begin to appear when the video depicts Tuk being nailed to a cross by a pair of corporate suits (other members of the band are sentenced to death via either the guillotine, hanging or electrocution). The appropriation and subversion of such imagery has long been a means for artists to rail against tradition and the hypocrisies inherent in the status quo, but here it just feels heavy-handed and out of sorts with the band’s identity. It’s a surprisingly humorless moment from a group who have made substantial gains by depicting themselves as devil-may-care revelers with killer power-pop hooks. That’s not to say Biters should be excluded from making social or political overtures, but if there’s one thing the band has shown us in the past it’s that, in addition to railing against the establishment, rebellion can be a hell of a lot more fun than this.
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Facebook: @BITERS
Twitter: @TheBiters