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Watch Paramore Make Hugs Not War in Epic ‘Now’ Video

paramore now video

Late last month, reborn emo-pop practitioners Paramore shared their long-awaited new single, “Now,” which stirred up a little No Doubt-style speak-singing with Muse-big bombast to solidly exciting results. To wit, SPIN’s staff weighed in with Our Impulsive Reviews, and the high-stakes song scored a hefty 7.42 across an oft-divided panel. 

As also noted back then, the band had already wrapped the song’s music video witDaniel Cloud Campos behind the camera, according to a January 16 tweet from singer Hayley Williams. She thanked the man “for writing/ directing such an important video for us.” They also tweeted this photo, which certainly piqued curiosity for the “Now” short.

Well, at last it has arrived, via MTV, and the video is epic indeed. Williams and the gang are part of a group of revolutionary peasant-types fighting against heavily armored SWAT sorts. She walks ever forward toward her antagonizer, a beret-wearing general, and lithely avoids most danger along the way while colorful smoke fills the frames.

This becomes an odd bit of bright beauty contrasting with the corporeal violence happening all around, but the war wages on. Williams takes a hard fall just as it’s her moment to sing, “There’s a time and a place to die, and this ain’t it.” She rises up to save the day in the most unconventional and typically heart-wrenching of ways.