Watch Philly’s Nothing in living color on the new “Vertigo Flowers” video

Up to this point, if Philadelphia atmospheric punks Nothing had a color palette, it was most certainly black and white. The band mixes a forceful wall of overdriven guitars (often compared to My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive and other denizens of the shoegaze era) with heavy, existential lyrical musings. Add on to that their penchant for monochromatic artwork on releases like 2012’s Downward Years to Comeand 2014’s Guilty of Everything, and the number of black-t-shirt-clad dudes at their shows, and the surface impression you get is super duper noir.

But beneath a grim surface can lie a vibrant, colorful interior – just as a bright, blossoming facade can contain some of the darkest musings of the mind. Life is complex, the world is complex, it’s less surface and more duality and interchangeability – Nothing frontman and creative visionary Domenic Palermo gets this, and makes it a point of his art.

So on the one hand, it’s surprising to see the band covered in lively, multi-hues spray paint in their new video for “Vertigo Flowers.” The song, from the forthcoming Tired of Tomorrow, is also one of the most positively poppy in the band’s catalog, channeling Lush, Catherine Wheel and Smashing Pumpkins. But lyrically, as Palermo tells Noisey, it’s about paranoia and isolation, and hearing him describe the shoot for the playful clip sounds anything but cheery.

Everyone in the band was told the paint would burn their eyes, taste bad in their mouth, and be very cold. [The video was going to be one single shot], bringing even more pressure as we had no way to have a real rehearsal. I wanted to create a blank canvas and let the unpredictability and anxiety that comes with the anticipation of something awful tell the story, all the while showcasing the brilliance and beauty that can follow and be left, directly behind.

Watch the “Vertigo Flowers” video below. Tired of Tomorrow is out on May 16th via Relapse Records. (UPDATE; Nothing just announced its album release party at Union Transfer on July 8th; tickets go on sale this Friday, March 11th, at noon, more information at the venue’s website.)