Nightfall is a Greek metal band whose most recent album was released by Metal Blade in August 2010. Called Astron Black and The Thirty Tyrants, it’s a worthwhile pantheon of blackened melodic death metal. Shortly before the album’s debut, we featured a unique music video that had been created for the song “Ambassadors of Mass”. Definitely not your usual metal video fare, it depicted scenes from the 5th century war between Greece and Persia using nothing but images of shadow puppets.
That apparently didn’t exhaust the imagination of the band or Achilleas Gatsopoulos, the Berlin-based director who was responsible for the “Ambassadors of Mass” video. Today, Metal Blade premiered a video for another song off that 2010 album, “Astron Black”. It’s not your typical metal video either. This one integrates live actors into a digital environment to tell a medley of stories from ancient Greek mythology. But the gods and their creations, though set among the planets and stars, look like something out of a Lady Gaga stage show, with gleaming metallic armor and protruding, uh, . . . nipplage.
There’s enough skin showing in this video, not to mention a quick shot of a celestial knob-job, that it probably qualifies as NSFW. But it’s definitely fun to watch, and the song — like all the others on this album — is a nice slice of headbanging fun, too. Check it out after the jump, along with a detailed description by Achilleas Gatsopoulos of the imagery used in the vid.
And here are the comments from director Achilleas Gatsopoulos:
“We decided not to go safe and continue with the shadow puppet approach for the second video too, even though there is still a lot of space for experimentation within that. Instead, I came up with an entirely different style that would add yet another facet to the complex task of visualising Nightfall’s music.
Working with the lyrics and with Efthimis conceptual guidance, I set up a vast backdrop of space and time for our characters to inhabit, incorporating various planetary and astronomical elements. The characters include mythical deities such as Gaia, Prometheus, Venus / Pandora, as well as Astron Black, who symbolises mankind and its progress through time.
The video also incorporates Pandora’s myth from Hesiod’s Theogony. Gaia gives birth to stars and deities, to Prometheus. Prometheus stole the fire (also a metaphor for knowledge and practical thought) and gave it to man. Zeus punished Prometheus by binding him to a rock where the great eagle would come and eat his intestines every day. As an act of revenge on mankind, he creates Pandora, the first woman. Here we present Venus Pandora, who also posseses the power of sexual desire over man. Her curiosity proves fatal, as she opens the urn bestowed to her by the Gods, unleashing all evils upon mankind, leaving only hope inside.
The style of the video brings together various elements such as stylish costumes, live action footage and CGI, adding a modern approach to the ancient but timeless imagery of our characters and situations. I truly believe that once again we managed to successfully recreate and enhance the lyrical and musical themes and create something unique that will stand the test of time stylistically.”
21 Responses to “NIGHTFALL’S “ASTRON BLACK” VIDEO”
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wtf was that
The future of metal videos, that’s what!
At :30, I laughed. I’ll admit it.
Well, truthfully, it’s physically impossible not to laugh at the word Uranus. Nobel prize-winning astronomers laugh at the word Uranus. It’s un-not-laughable.
But they fucking OPENED with it! They HAD to know!
Of course they knew. They had to know. They had nine planets to choose from and hundreds of galaxies and they led with the all-powerful URANUS!
HA! I only let myself look away after I had watched the whole thing. I was completely transfixed during the first playthrough.
Well that certainly was…interesting!
The music was such a weird hodgepodge of black metal and melodic death metal that I officially have no idea how I felt about it all.
Have another shot, with a quart of beer back.
It’s hard to form a musical opinion when you have that much astral-vag-spray and tittie-coneed-tron ladies flying at you. I had to look away from the screen to even catch the words.
NO! NO! You ruined it! You CAN’T look away! You missed something vital, because it’s all VITAL!
They better do all of this LIVE then!
Especially if they’re gonna do it in outter space.
Tickets might be a bit expensive, but the way “liquids” (I’m implying cum, jizzum and slobber) move in zero g makes it worth it.
Totally.
Phro’s gonna have a ball with this video
Well, I thought he would, too. He must have gotten too much sleep and not enough whiskey. “Interesting”? Really? That’s all you got Phro?
Well, I wasn’t arouse by it, I didn’t hate it, I THINK I liked it, but I really didn’t grok it on a level that I could describe.
I was a bit disturbed by the giant nipples that made my tentaclepenis feel small, insignificant, and kinda pointless.
But the whole thing reminded me of a porno video game.
Now that’s more like it! Though I must say that when you opted for the tentaclepenis prosthetic I assumed you’d go BIG, like a boss.
3 things.
1) Did you just make a The Lonely Island joke?
2) Because I was broke from buying bandages to stop blood loss.
3) I find inadequate is a state I’m not yet capable of escaping.
1) Well, not intentionally, but since you mention it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NisCkxU544c&feature=related
2) You’ve learned an important lesson. It is better to bleed out and go BIG than to fuck with pussy bandages and remain . . . inadequate
3) See (2) above.
1) I love that song so much I want it played when I eventually win the world shitting competition.
2) You are correct, but my inadequacy precludes me doing anything adequately.
3) I’m just including this one because, what the hell, why not?
4) Now I’m just fuckin’ with you.
5) Oh yah, you actually read this one.
6) And this one two.
7) What’s with Cheetos? I mean, they taste good, but that dust is gross.
8) I have a hedgehog literally sitting millimeters above my dick right now.
9) Please don’t scare the hedgehog.
10) I’ll pay good, fake money to watch Jay Leno and David Lettermen fight each other to death using nothing but each others’ severed penises.