[Photo courtesy of A24]

By Rocco Prioletti, Contributor

Experimental-pop band Animal Collective released an original song entitled, “Crucible” from their upcoming score to the A24 film, The Inspection. 

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The film follows Ellis French, a young Black man disowned by his family for his sexuality, who enlists in the Marines Corps, doing anything to succeed within a system that shuns gay Black men. 

Written and directed solely by filmmaker Elegance Bratton, the film recounts his own personal autobiographical accounts and struggles, resulting in, “one of the most stirring portraits of queer Black masculinity since Moonlight,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. 

In a press-release, Animal Collective’s Avey Tare spoke on their compositional motives, saying, “I wanted us to conjure the feeling of being strong but also showing vulnerability. The desire to ask a community or a loved one to have your back and support you and the expectation that it will happen.”

When asked about their inclusion of the band in an interview with Pitchfork, Bratton recalled that, “We were very inspired by the music of our composers Animal Collective. We wanted to create the right rhythms to blur the line between what French thinks is real and what is really happening. Animal Collective provides the perfect backdrop to shrink and expand the time according to the emotion.”

This will be the second score the quartet had composed after their work on the 2021’s Crestone, an independent documentary following a group of SoundCloud rappers who are residing within the heat of the secluded Colorado desert.

Listen to “Crucible” here.

The Inspection releases on Nov.18., showings limited to select theaters.