Back in May, the (mostly) Swedish death metal band Darkened unleashed their Dan Swanö-engineered sophomore album The Black Winter onto the world. Now, as that selfsame black winter approaches to darken the Northern Hemisphere, they’ve produced their first-ever music video, for album highlight “Swallowed by the World.” The clip was directed by Stefan Jansson, and it marks the first appearance of drummer Perra Karlsson (In Aeternum, ex-Deströyer 666) as a full-time member of the band. (He wears sunglasses indoors throughout the video; bonus points have been awarded accordingly.)
In the black-and-white clip, Darkened tear through the song in a dingy practice space, while Jansson intercuts their performance with short, almost subliminal images of gravestones, skulls, maggots, and other such cheerful imagery. You can check out the video and read a statement from the band below.
“We’ve talked about making a video, and now we felt it was a good time, introducing Perra as the new drummer of Darkened. We’re very pleased with the result, and we’re already talking about doing another video for the next album as well.”
The Black Winter is available now, including as a vinyl-only Full Dynamic Range edition, via Edged Circle Productions.