grandson — GOD IS AN ANIMAL

JUL 01 2025 · 12:00

grandson — GOD IS AN ANIMAL (2025) Director: Joe Weil Era: Post-Pandemic Protest Rock Revival (2025) - Mid-2020s alternative/industrial rock renaissance marked by Orwellian socio-political allegory, DIY-punk ethos fused with high-contrast digital production, and accelerationist visual language responding to global political instability High curatorial value as a document of 2025 alternative rock's politically charged visual culture. The video encapsulates a specific moment of Orwellian anxiety rendered through modern 4K production, extreme desaturation, and kinetic editing — all serving an explicitly allegorical anti-establishment narrative. Confirmed director Joe Weil (Psycho Films) adds auteur pedigree. Valuable for cross-referencing against 1990s protest-rock visual archives. Context: Released August 15, 2025 as the third pre-release single from grandson's third album INERTIA (XX Records / Create Music, September 5, 2025), 'GOD IS AN ANIMAL' arrives amid a broader mid-2020s surge of politically engaged alternative rock. Jordan Benjamin (grandson) explicitly rooted the track in a long-gestating concept inspired by George Orwell's 1984 — a farm animal learning to 'move like a human' to seize power — framing it as an allegory for resistance, defiance, and systemic critique. The video's extreme desaturation, claustrophobic framing, and frenetic editing translate this Orwellian worldview into a visual grammar that resonates with audiences experiencing political polarization, institutional distrust, and cultural acceleration. Released via independent label infrastructure, it represents grandson's continued positioning outside major-label systems. Director notes: Confirmed directed by Joe Weil via IMVDb (imvdb.com/video/grandson/god-is-an-animal). Video premiered August 15, 2025, released under copyright XX RECORDS 2025. The visual approach — described by reviewers as 'claustrophobic' — aligns with Weil's documented aesthetic of raw, boundary-pushing music video production through Psycho Films. The Orwellian concept (inspired by George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm) is reflected in dystopian, high-contrast visual language consistent with the quantitative metrics: near-zero saturation (0.003), high contrast (89.5), and a rapid avg shot length of 1.69s across 139 scene changes.