Boots, Beyoncé’s Not-so-Secret Weapon, Just Released a Searing New Video, “Mercy”

Beyoncé’s last album was a pretty great showcase of experimental pop production—it took innovative, surprising turns and it constantly succeeded. One of the producers who made that happen is Boots, and he just dropped a new video for his heart-lurching ballad, “Mercy.” With spacious production—the song’s first three minutes are mostly just guitar and voice—and a weary-sounding blues vocal that invokes Grizzly Bear a little in its vocalizations, “No Mercy” starts quiet and ends in a dramatic, heavily distorted crescendo. In the video he smiles at the camera like the arty heartthrob from high school and, sports a few bloody injuries, setting a tone of stillness before finding release in the song’s cathartic finale.