Video: Death Lens, ‘Not Impressed’

Kevin Bronson on July 28th, 2022

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Death Lens (Photo by Robert Aaron Nuñez)

Death Lens have been spreading their deliciously impudent punk rock for the better part of a decade, using the familiar tools: stinging guitars, racehorse rhythms and snarling, shouted vocals, not to mention an anti-authoritarian streak as wide as the 405.

Their ethos is tested in director Charlie Schwan’s madcap video for “Not Impressed,” one of the highlights of Death Lens’ third album (and first since 2017), “No Luck.”

In the video, Wyatt Miller portrays a slimeball manager who argues that he can make the band a big deal, if they would only sign with him. The Boyle Heights quartet — Bryan Torres, Jhon Reyes, Ed Contreras and Matt Silva — are divided on the issue. The fissure in the band dissolves into chaos until, well … watch and and see whether Torres goes out of his stocking-capped head.

“It’s a beautiful mess with a good amount of chaos (just like ourselves), that leads to us to keeping our dignity,” the band says. “Because in the end, it’s what we make of ourselves and not what others think.”

Death Lens calls the song itself “our ‘fuck you’ anthem to those who wanted to put us down while we were trying to get up.”

Added the band, who during the pandemic scrapped the album they had been working on and started anew: “It’s the spark that lit the powder keg and allowed us to start writing ‘No Luck.’ We were being called washed out, burnouts, within the music community. We took that anger and used it as fuel to write this anthem, to let it ring through Los Angeles in hopes that it would reach those who didn’t believe in us. And let me tell you, it did. So this song is for those who feel like they can’t achieve what they want because there are others trying to bring them down. Trust me, you can do whatever you want, use this song as fuel and tell those haters to fuck off.

||| Watch: The video for “Not Impressed”