Welcome to The Used's vaguely post-apocalyptic, industrial future.

The #emorevival is so last year. 2014 is going to be the year of the pop-screamo revival! And leading the charge will be the genre-defining icons of The Used who, TBH, never went away. Their new video for "Cry," a track off their upcoming Imaginary Enemy LP due out in April, shows why they've managed to stay in the conversation for as long as they have.

Set in one of those cavernous, foreboding, water-soaked warehouses that only rock bands and evil masterminds ever hang out in, the Gus Black-directed clip depicts a vaguely post-apocalyptic scenario, where a gas mask-wearing heroine is pitted against... a book-burning villain?

It's sort of hard to keep track, especially since we were pretty entranced by Bert McCracken's sharp as HAY-YULL new haircut and giant neck tattoo while watching. Anyway, despite the dark undertones, the clip is practically a summer day in the park compared to their last few videos.

McCracken explained the thinking behind the video in a somewhat cryptic statement: "Do we ever truly recognize moments of life altering change?" Continuing, he asks: "And does a glimpse of true recognition ever move to solidify the fleeting moments of life that pass us by? What does it mean to live forever in the eternal now?

"How can we, as human beings, avoid the serfdom of the philosophical concept of 'future'? Before it is too late we must learn to love the precious present with all of the fury and passion life has allowed us. Understanding that it is exactly what we do with our tragedy to inspire others with theirs, that makes us the people we are.

"In the words of the great Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: 'The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.'"

And that right there, kids, is why people who burn books get taken out.

+ Watch The Used's "Cry" here.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE2CAvJZiiM

Photo credit: Hopeless Records