Psychedelic Outlaw Country Anime On Netflix Will Make Heavy Metal Fans Very Happy

Based on the outlaw country album of the same name, Sturgill Simpson Presents Sound and Fury is an assault on the senses in the best kind of way. Functioning as a series of loosely connected animated and live-action shorts across its tight run time, this Netflix original can be best described as a road trip through the end of days with a pulsing psychedelic country-rock soundtrack. While this short doesn’t necessarily have a plot in the conventional sense, it most certainly takes you on a journey through the wasteland as if it were an animated counterpart to the Mad Max saga.

Sturgill Simpson’s approach to Sound and Fury is as unique as its visuals, and by the sound of it, he just let his creative impulses take over during a very transitional time in his career. Though his preceding albums are more in the outlaw country wheelhouse, Simpson said he was listening to a lot of hip-hop, heavy metal, new-wave, and funk while recording the album with his bandmates. Knowing that he had a genre-bending album full of certified bangers, he decided to ante up and travel to Japan so he could recruit some of the best animators he could find and turn the entire album into a long music video.

In Sturgill Simpson’s own words (I’m paraphrasing due to profanity), he wanted to get a bunch of animators drunk and have them compete and collaborate to see how they’d attempt to outdo each other while working Sound and Fury. While I’m taking his statement at face value, I can’t say that I don’t believe him because the visuals ramp up as the album progresses. From the fluid animation to the pulsing bass lines, shimmering synth melodies, ripping guitar solos, and rock-solid drumming, Sound and Fury fully explores the concept of combining melodic and visual storytelling while its lyrics about the sorrowful state of the world rattle your skull until your brain melts in an attempt to comprehend what’s actually happening.

While Sturgill Simpson Presents Sound and Fury effectively portrays what the world would look like during end times as Simpson sees it, it also gets personal. One of my favorite sequences involves a lone skateboarder wearing a yellow hazmat suit while Simpson sings, “I think I’d rather stay home and make art, not friends.” When the lone skateboarder finally arrives at her safe haven after shredding her way through a vacant city, she ignores all the troubles that may be waiting for her outside and finds peace in her solitude because she’s finally at home, where she belongs.

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If you’re like me, I urge you to learn from my mistake and never dismiss a genre (or genres) that you’re unfamiliar with. You’ll never know when something like Sturgill Simpson Presents Sound and Fury will pop up on your suggested viewing feed and completely blow your mind. You can stream this animated rock odyssey on Netflix, but I also recommend picking up the album as well because it’s the best music to drive to.