The music video for “High Road” by Mastodon tells the story of a teenaged boy who encounters adversity while live-action role playing, and is able to overcome it with the help of his grandma and badass elderly neighbor. Directed by frequent Mastodon collaborator Roboshobo, the video begins with our young hero daydreaming about two scantily clad babes playing chess in front of him. He is snapped back into reality by his oxygen-mask rocking grandma, which leads us into a short montage bringing us up to speed on his life. We find out that he spends most of his time alone or with his grandma playing Dungeons & Dragons – the two of them actually have a really sweet relationship where he helps her with her prescriptions and she actually seems to enjoy kicking his ass in D&D. Eventually we find our boy rolling up to a group of larpers at a park getting ready for war. Unfortunately, he doesn’t do so well, as is almost immediately defeated by a jerky group of vepers who go on to win the whole battle.

Because they are jerky vape heads, they don’t let it end there and continue to taunt him for days afterward, going as far as to burn a dummy that looks like him in his front lawn. His neighbor runs over and puts of the fire, igniting a Rocky-style montage of weight lighting and sword training with the neighbor as the trainer and our boy as the slowly improving warrior. The next time the larpers meet up, he's ready for action, and takes advantage of a few opportunities to give the vapers what they deserve.

“High Road” was produced by Doomsday Entertainment and can be downloaded as a single now. 

Doug Klinger is the co-founder/content director of IMVDb and watches more music videos than anyone on earth. You can find him on twitter at @doug_klinger.