“I figured if I was ever going to get away with being a jackass on a motorcycle, it would be for my own music video,” said Twin Shadow’s George Lewis, Jr in a statement about the stunts he attempts in the clip above for “5 Seconds.” “My mom is gonna be super bummed out, but yes, that’s me surfing my motorcycle … and yes, I’m also on the wrong side of the road.”

Apparently, the story behind the video demands such feats. Lewis based the plot on an as-yet-unpublished novel, Night of the Silver Sun, that he has co-written with his friend Eric Green. In the clip, which Lewis premiered last night on the big screens in New York’s Times Square, the singer rides a motorcycle (with a wolf’s body on the back of it!) as a narrator explains that Lewis stole the Prince of Fangs’ Golden Cycle — “the fastest bike from the Village of Fang to the Town of Silver Sound.” There’s more to it, but much more impressive than the plot are the visuals, which include masked men in the woods chasing after Lewis, an action-packed escape and a woman stitching up a knife wound in her arm.

The music is far less violent, as Lewis repeatedly sings, “She said, five seconds to your heart/straight to the heart,” over beds of new-wave-influenced synths and muted guitars. It even has a bouncy, optimistic bridge that sounds like a distant relative of Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away.” More so, we like that George lives dangerously these days.

“5 Seconds” comes from Twin Shadow’s sophomore set Confess, which arrives on July 10 via 4AD.