Cleveland-based crossover hardcore group Punching Moses released a new single and video called “Escape the Mausoleum” off their upcoming sophomore album Live Short and Suffer which is due out March 8 from Seeing Red Records. The song—which will be the album’s closing track—and the accompanying music video both pay homage to the classic 1979 horror movie Phantasm while simultaneously giving a fictional explanation for the disappearance of former band members.
In a statement reported on by Metal Injection, the band explain a little bit about the idea behind the song and video:
“‘Escape The Mausoleum’ is an homage to the movie Phantasm. The song describes the unearthly journey the dead make to ultimately become the Tall Man’s tiny slaves on his planet. All of this it taken from the point of view of Mike, the main character in the film who has to navigate the house of the undertaker and of course ‘Escape The Mausoleum’!
“The video however has little to do with that, because you know… we’re nutty over here. The video is a murder mystery blended within a live show that basically brings together past members of the band who are slowly killed off by who appears to be Tony Erba (the newest band member formerly of 9 Shocks Terror, Face Value, Amps II Eleven) with a little smattering of one of our favorite subjects, substance abuse.
“The storyline was just something fun to do that would take viewers on some sort of visual journey instead of just having Phantasm movie clips or simple live band shots. Everything was written and performed by Punching Moses with a lot of creative help from Sean Bilovecky (Frayle) who shot, directed, and edited the entire thing.”
And yes, according to the video’s end credits, those are actually former Punching Moses band members such as Kevin Binder, Shack Erman, and Rob Needham being killed off by the band’s new bassist Tony Erba. That’s certainly a cathartic way to get closure with former members of the band. “No hard feelings, but we’re going to have our new bassist murder you in the bloodiest way possible.” Good to hear the ex-bandmates were such good sports about everything.
Live Short and Suffer, which is only the band’s second full-length in 11 years, is available for pre-order from Seeing Red Records.