Watch Modest Mouse Mock Fantasy Genre in ‘The Ground Walks’ Video

Modest Mouse have premiered the eerie, fantasy-inspired new video for “The Ground Walks, With Time in a Box,” another single off the group’s long-awaited 2015 LP Strangers to Ourselves. In the video, Isaac Brock and company dress up like bizarre medieval vagrants – one wears a crown of house keys; another dons a robe made of neckties – and partake in a pagan ceremony before the video devolves to bloody violence in its final minutes.

The video’s gory closing sequence, with Brock gauging an opponent’s eyes with such force that the entire head explodes, is no doubt inspired by a similarly gruesome sequence between “The Mountain” and “The Red Viper” on this past season’s Game of Thrones. “The Ground Walks, With Time in a Box” follows Modest Mouse’s visceral video for Strangers to Ourselves‘ “Lampshades on Fire,” which was also directed by Jorge Torres-Torres.

The only downside to this version of “The Ground Walks, With Time in a Box”: The video’s runtime shaves two minutes off the album version, significantly cutting into the track’s hypnotic, Talking Heads-flavored instrumental section.

Modest Mouse will return from a European trek later this month with another slate of North American dates, including a just-announced September 5th gig at Philadelphia’s Made in America fest. The band, who will also visit the Austin City Limits fest in October as well as both Chicago and Denver’s Riot Fests, will remain on the road until their tour-ending performance at New Orleans’ Voodoo Experience on October 30th.