1. Bring Me the Horizon – “Go to Hell, For Heaven’s Sake”
“Go to Hell for, Heaven’s Sake” by ‘Bring Me the Horizon’ (BMTH) features on
‘Sempiternal’. Sempiternal is the fourth studio album by British metalcore band Bring Me
the Horizon. It was released on 1st April 2013 worldwide through RCA, a subsidiary label
of Sony Music Entertainment. Vocalist Oli Sykes’ lyrics for this song were inspired by his
atheist views and an encounter with somebody who had a differing viewpoint.
The video is performance – concept as it features cuts between shots of BMTH performing
in a church, an ironic setting, and shots of and close ups of numerous things that may seem
dangerous or appear creepy/frightening (e.g. animals – particularly insects and predators,
guns, guillotines, blood etc.), close ups of eyes to convey extreme emotions (fear) and there
are frequent references to religion – specifically Christianity through the use of the Crucifix.
Some of these images are repeated to emphasise the theme of the song.
It conforms to Andrew Goodwin’s theory of a stereotypical performance in a rock/metal
music video. It also supports his idea that there are intertextual links and references to
horror films – at some points in the video there is a girl dressed in white with long black hair
covering her face, a reference to “The Grudge” (2004 horror film). The low angle shot
(below, right) is a typical convention of a horror film to make the audience feel afraid of and
inferior to the antagonist. The jump cut from the shot prior to the shot shown below (right)
creates tension in the same way as a typical horror film.
When the lyric, “I’m bleeding out every word you said” is sung, an image of blood
dripping is shown to illustrate it (below, left). This contradicts Goodwin’s theory as he
mentioned that there are rarely visuals that that directly and literally point to the lyrics. Red
is a typical representation of and immediately associated with danger, devils (below, right)
and Hell. This once again expresses the theme of the song in which Jesus and his association
with Angels and Heaven is contrasted with the idea of Hell and rebelling against Religion.

2. Goodwin mentioned that there is
intertextuality in music videos as
audiences enjoy knowing the ‘in-joke’.
This is very prominent in ways in the
video because other than showing
references to horror films, at the end
there is an image of a raven. This could
be linked to Edgar Allan Poe’s poem ‘The
Raven’, a masterpiece heavily associated
with the gothic. Their target audience
may like Edgar Allan Poe’s work as he is
primarily very gothic. It also links to the
Ravens at the Tower of London which
represent oncoming doom and disaster.
There are other gothic references such as dark magic, voodoo dolls, exorcisms and what
looks like clairvoyance.
Other aspects of mise-en-scene in the video such as the black clothes (costume) the band
are wearing, also link to a heavy metal genre of music, as well as a horror film genre in which
the antagonist is usually wearing a dark costume. This represents the band as antagonists or
‘villains’ (Propp’s character theory) – their audience may also represent themselves as one
of Propp’s characters depending on their moral, cultural and social morals/values. The
lighting in the performance sections are quite bright (high key), but the concept sections are
very dark in contrast to this. This low key lighting set doesn’t show much of what is going on,
and this leads the viewer to ask questions and acts as an Enigma code (Barthes Codes). The
members of BMTH are a stereotypical representation of a metal band as they wear leather
and have lots of tattoos which are typical rock genre characteristics. The majority of the
props shown are either Crucifix’s in the concept section or the band’s instruments (electric
guitars, drums) in the performance section. There are also shots of candles which are very
atmospheric and could suggest an idea of an exorcism or something similar. This suggests
that the theme is quite heavy and probably more likely to attract a male target audience.
The performance is set, ironically, in a church which is also symbolic because the song is
about rebelling against religion.
This ironic setting will be influential in how the audience read the video. A preferred
reading would be that the band might want Christians to be shocked and offended by the
video. An oppositional reading would be from the perspective on non-religious people
(Atheists) who would be shocked at the idea of rebelling against the system.
There are similar contradictory/ironic motifs that run throughout, one of these is at the
end where there are visuals of stone angels which represents the idea Heaven rather than
Hell.
The theory of Barthes codes can be applied to the music video, more specifically the
Cultural code. As previously mentioned many times, the main theme throughout the video is
the idea of going against and rebelling against religion. To some extent this reflects the idea
of the large majority of teenagers aged 16 and over (their target audience) in the UK, where
the band was formed. The video displays several images of Jesus on the Crucifix and Crosses
burning. These images reflect the band’s ideals and morals.

3. The technical aspects of the video also reflect the theme. The black and white static effect
throughout the video suggest a melancholy, gothic and depressing atmosphere. There is also
a white noise filter which makes the video looks edgy and like a rock video. The shaky
camera movements reflect the loud, heavy beat of the song. All of the camera shots are
short and fast paced, keeping in with the fast beat of the music and hectic/loud nature of
the song. The extreme close ups of eyes, dead animals and living insects cut out a lot of the
image behind it; once again adding an enigma code as we do not see the full picture of what
is happening.
There are lots of abstract images (realism) and the imagery is also very graphic – animals
fighting/dead animals/small insects, and this natural side of the video feature edits from
different mediums such as documentaries. This suggests that there is a lot of truth behind
the song and lyrics.