Behind The Scenes: Sick Sad World – Bargaining (Official Video)

“Bargaining” is the quietest and most delicate track on Deuil(s), yet in many ways it is also the album’s most intense. The lyrics are more direct, raw, and less metaphorical than on the other songs. They deal with loss, the fight against illness, and the different kinds of struggle faced by those who are left behind — how they experience it, endure it, and ultimately have to find their own way through it.

It is probably the most intimate song on the album, both lyrically and emotionally.

We chose to make a video for “Bargaining” because it is one of the album’s most accessible and concise tracks, but also because it felt particularly visual. From the very first listen, the song naturally evoked images and emotions that we felt could be translated into film.

We chose Maureen Piercy to direct it because her understated aesthetic and her approach to atmosphere, blurred imagery, glances, and gestures felt ideal for telling this story without falling into the usual visual clichés surrounding death. Rather than focusing on death itself, we wanted the video to remain firmly on the side of the living.

There is pain and grief in it, of course, but also solidarity, tenderness, and the love shared by those who remain. It was particularly important for us to show gestures of presence and support between the members of the band, because these are moments that, in different ways, we have genuinely experienced ourselves.

That intention extends beyond the video to the artwork for Deuil(s) as a whole. In both cases, we wanted an artistic direction centred on sensitivity, intimacy, and human emotion rather than the conventional imagery of death that can sometimes be associated with metal.

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