VIDEO OF THE WEEK – ACID REIGN

Chosen by DJ Monk

Despite the current lockdown, we are still receiving a healthy bundle of submissions for our coveted ‘Video Of The Week’ title. While some artists are trying to find new ways of visually interpreting their songs, others obviously have had the guts of their filming completed in advance of the global quarantine, with the finishing touches being added in isolated post-production. This week’s selection once again sees a balance of these two approaches….

Our lead offering comes from everyone’s favourite purveyors of “applecore”, Acid Reign, who dropped a new ‘Lockdown’ version of their single, ‘Blood Makes Noise’, this past week, complete with quarantine-proofed lockdown video. Of course, it being H and his crue, this isn’t just four guys standing in front of cameras playing the song through: of course not – it’s them have as much socially-distanced fun as they can have, and getting up to as much mischief as they can without overstepping the censorship boundaries… and they even managed to get cult US songstress Suzanne Vega (who wrote the original song) in on the act! Want to know how? Well, here’s how…

Next up, we all love a bit of Ed Sheeran, don’t we? I mean, what’s not to like about him? OK, we’re being a tad facetious – just a tad, mind you – but the flame-haired Dave Mustaine lookalike provides us with our next selection… well, the song anyway, in the form of ‘I See Fire’, which has been given something of a radical makeover by German folk rockers Feuerschwanz – complete with bagpipes and fiddles! Taken from the band’s forthcoming covers album ‘Die Sieben Todsünden’ which will be released as part of the deluxe version of the band’s upcoming new album, ‘Das Elfte Gebot’, which is due to land on 26 June. The video was filmed in Cornwall last Autumn:

We keep things epic with ÜK symphonic metallers Serpentyne and their new single, ‘Away From The World’, a song about “escaping from reality to a dream-like state in which the mind creates a world of its own” but perhaps given a new emphasis with the current situation in which many of us find ourselves locked… well… away from the world. The accompanying video is a nifty amalgam of animation, live action and suitably socially-distanced performance clips:

We’ve two more offerings for you this week, the penultimate of which comes from Finnish melodic death metallers Sinisthra and the highly atmospheric ‘Eterne’, the opening track from their forthcoming concept album, ‘The Broad And Beaten Way’, which is based on Milton’s epic poem ‘Paradise Lost’. Featuring a guest appearance by Amorphis vocalist Tomi Joutsen, the accompanying video is suitably bleak, and was actually filmed in the now abandoned and derelict house in which Sinisthra guitarist Markku Mäkinen grew up:

We’re going retro – very retro – with our final offering, which is actually an old song being brought back to life, and sees us turning the clock back to the early Nineties and a “supergroup” that never quite made it by the name of Bomb Squad. Readers with long memories might remember the name, but it’s being brought back to life thanks to the folks at FnA Records, who have just re-released the hit-single-that-never-was ‘Your Love Makes Me High’, complete with a video that looks like it could have been ripped straight from out-takes from ‘Top Gun’ or ‘Iron Eagle’…

That’s your lot for this week. Hope you have enjoyed the new sights and sounds we have brought to you this week. Until next time, keep ‘er lit, keep ‘er between the hedges and #StayTheFuckHome…