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After 10-plus years of showcasing all the good kinds of “weird” in the world, Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys are honing in on the bad kind — i.e., the everyday oddity that is America’s current political climate.
As 2019 quickly approaches, the eight-piece steampunk collective are gearing up to release their “dystopian guerrilla opera” War Gospel, an unsurprisingly surreal yet politically-charged series of music videos.
The first segment of the drama, titled “DINO DOMINA,” debuts today (October 31), although some fans got a glimpse of the project at the band’s gig at the Museum of Science earlier this month.
“‘DINO DOMINA’ is chapter 1 of War Gospel, which is an episodic dystopian monster opera that will calumniate in a musical film featuring a diverse community of musicians, dancers, actors and artists,” Sickert explains to Vanyaland. “We’re all working together to tell a series of fables about an authoritarian regime which is sucking the color out of the world and the various acts of resistance, magic and community which fights against evil.”
Sickert and co.’s work has always erred towards the opulent and fantastical, but War Gospel might just signal the most ambitious and overwhelming opus for the group to date. From latex suit-clad villains to colorful faux-gore, “DINO DOMINA” holds back precisely nothing.
“We’re being bombarded with the horror of oppression and systemic hate, but are resisting the call to give in to fear, self-doubt and isolation,” Sickert says. “Every aspect of that war, from the world stage down to the internal battle in one’s self, is examined in our visual song-cycle.”
But beyond the heady themes of the series, the positives outweigh the negatives, and hope, collaboration, and cooperation not only shine through, but are put to practice in real life in the project.
“What I find absolutely exhilarating is the level of collaboration with artists that actively work to make Boston and beyond safe, weird, and welcoming,” they conclude. “‘DINO DOMINA’ is the first part of an immense apocalyptic tapestry told with many disparate voices united as one and rooted in the belief that love is worth fighting for, and so are you.”
Check out part one of the battle below.
Featured photo by Jonathan Beckley.