Glass Animals' lead singer Dave Bayley says that Agnes, from the Mercury-nominated How To Be A Human Being, is "the most honest and personal story I have ever written." It is also heartbreaking, and Eoin Glaister puts Bayley through an experience to physically replicate its gravity.

It's clear from watching the video that, as he attempts to perform, Bayley is undergoing an extreme test of endurance – and from the cutaway shots, ever-building levels of pressure. In fact, he is inside a human centrifuge, and experiencing G-forces that make him feel increasingly weighted down - as Glaister explains below. Nic Booth's camerawork emphasises that sense of weight, increasing tension, and claustrophobia, heightened by the square-framing. It's heavy alright.  

EOIN GLAISTER:

“Agnes is, probably, the saddest song Dave will ever write, and so this video required a sensitive approach. In searching for ways to explore the weight of grief I remembered my grandfather used to perform tests on a human centrifuge, a machine used by pilots for G-force training. There’s a scene in Moonraker where an assassin tries to kill Bond in one. Only Roger Moore faked it. Dave didn’t. Essentially it’s an extremely large bit of kit that spins around very quickly. As it does so it subjects its occupants to increased levels of G-force. The faster you go, the heavier you become.

"On the day Dave described this feeling as like having an elephant sat on his chest. Whilst I doubt the validity of his reference point, I am really grateful that he threw himself into this so wholeheartedly. It was physically demanding and logistically nightmarish and I’m super-grateful to all the excellent people that helped make it happen. It was emotional. Appropriately so.”