Avenged Sevenfold - Bat Country Music Video Analysis

Avenged Sevenfold - Bat Country

The Music Video Avenged Sevenfold ’Bat Country’ was made to promote their then new Album ’City of Evil’ and also to entertain the audience. The Music Video a narrative and performance. The name of the Music Video, The Music Video itself and lyrics in the song are all intentionality references to Hunter S. Thompson’s 1971 Novel ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The book features a Journalist, Raoule Duke travelling to Las Vegas while under the influence of various drugs. At the beginning of the book Raoule, under the effect of the drug LSD, Hallucinates seeing bats and manta rays flying in the sky. He panics and says to his companion Dr. Gonzo “We Can’t stop here, this is Bat Country.

The Music Video contains many references to this book and also generic references to the use of drugs, particularly LSD and the Hallucinations it causes. Throughout the video there are scenes that are references to the book and are meant to shock and scare the audience such as people with digitally distorted faces and exotic dances with lizard Tongues and Tails. The Music Video also cuts to the band performing in a motel room with exotic dancers surrounding them. Also the bands logo ‘The Deathbat’ is shown a number of times, although those who are not fans, or simply are not familiar with them would not know this.

The editing of the Music Video uses fast cutting to make the Music Mideo look as disorientating as possible, while the actual footage is edited with CGI add a ‘hallucinogenic’ effect. Filters look like they were also used to make the colours seem darker or lighter. These combined effects really help show just how disturbing the effects of LSD can be, while repeatedly making references to the book such as a Casino worker having a fish head, similar to where in the book, the main character, while hallucinating, sees the people inside the motel reception as writhing fish and reptiles.

The video is very much male orientated and does have a definite voyeuristic feel, especially in the motel room scenes. But this suit’s the mood of the video seeing its set in Las Vegas, also called ‘Sin City’.