Albums from even the buzziest acts tend to evaporate in this culture of Too Much Content, but Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher—one of our favorite albums of the year so far—continues to resonate, be it through TikTok memes or the endless replays of her videos and virtual performances. And her latest music video might be her best yet.
Directed by Alissa Torvinen, the below clip for closer “This Is The End”—the album’s most raucous and chaotic track—finds the silver-haired, skeleton-wrapped singer confronting anxieties regarding cleanliness, age, and what’s lurking in the darkness. It climaxes with a tiny, socially-distanced concert in the middle of L.A.’s Memorial Coliseum.
The rippling, chain-breaking scream that caps off the song is shared with an elderly woman in the video, who swallows Bridgers’ scream before the two embrace in a kiss, braving a gesture that’s riddled with an altogether new sense of danger in these times.