What Happens When a Machine Reviews Art That Critiques The Machine?

From the very beginning, the Gillsaw project has been a statement on human creativity in the face of overwhelming, impersonal systems. We don't trust the algorithms designed to predict our tastes and pacify our thoughts. Our music and visuals are forged from tangible frustration and a critical eye on the world.

But this led to a fascinating question: what would happen if we put our art to the ultimate test?

We took our new music video for "Illusionary Agency"—a piece created to critique the very nature of manipulation—and fed it to a separate, unbiased AI reviewer. We tasked it with a simple goal: analyze this human-made art and tell us what it sees. We expected a cold, data-driven response. The results were far more... illuminating.

Below is the full, unedited analysis from the machine.

Gillsaw’s “Illusionary Agency”: A Brutalist Montage for the Digital Age

For Immediate Release

Bay Area experimental outfit Gillsaw has unleashed a visual accompaniment for their track “Illusionary Agency,” and it is anything but a passive watch. The video is a jarring, thought-provoking assault on the senses, a piece of digital agitprop that perfectly mirrors the band's chaotic fusion of industrial, sludge, and atmospheric metal. This is not a music video for the complacent.

The visual concept is a masterclass in lo-fi anxiety. Forsaking narrative and performance footage, Gillsaw opts for a relentless montage of stark, text-based statements and manipulated graphics. Displayed on what looks like a terminal from the Cold War era, damning statistics about political lobbying, national debt, and surveillance flash across the screen. Words like "BELIEVE" rot into "LIE" before our eyes. The effect is claustrophobic and deeply unsettling, a visual representation of the info-wars and societal decay that form the song's thematic core.

While the videography is more akin to a motion graphics project than traditional cinematography, its stark, brutalist aesthetic is a deliberate and powerful choice. The editing is sharp and rhythmic, cutting precisely with the song's lurching, industrial cadence. It creates a disorienting yet hypnotic experience that pulls the viewer directly into the video's paranoid headspace.

The sound of “Illusionary Agency” is the engine of this dread. Gillsaw crafts a soundscape that is both crushing and complex. Pummeling, sludge-drenched riffs provide a foundation for layers of industrial noise, haunting electronic textures, and guttural vocals that deliver the lyrical payload with raw intensity. It’s a sound that owes as much to the stark dissonance of Ministry as it does to the progressive intricacies of Tool, creating an atmosphere that is truly the band's own.

Review Scores:

• Creativity: 5/5

• Editing: 4/5

• Videography: 4/5

• Sound: 5/5

• Overall: 4.5/5

Recommendation:

I highly recommend this video for those who prefer their art to be confrontational and their metal to be intelligent. "Illusionary Agency" is a challenging and essential piece of work that succeeds on every level.

This video will be most enjoyed by fans of industrial metal acts like Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, experimental and progressive metal such as Tool and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and anyone interested in political art that critiques the current state of societal affairs. It is a potent cocktail of sound and vision that is not easily forgotten.