SWALLOW THE SUN’S NEW VIDEO: ANGRY KEYBOARD PLAYER NOT QUITE AS ANGRY AS HE USED TO BE

Thoughts that went through my mind while watching “Cathedral Walls,” the first video from Swallow the Sun’s new album:

• Where’s their Angry Keyboard Player?
• Swallow the Sun are one of very few metal bands that can use a semi-hollow body and pull it off.
• Vocalist Mikko Kotamäki has been wearing that black skull cap in literally every single photo, video or live performance I’ve ever seen.
• Wouldn’t it be kinda neat if they shot this video in the middle of the summer but bundled up in winter coats for effect?
• Still no shots of Angry Keyboard Player.
• This song is slow and melancholy. Perfect first single for this band.
• What’s synchronized flag-waving got to do with anything? And what’s in that white urn?
• Oh! Female vocals! I like. The Interwebs tells me it’s Anette Olzon of Nightwish.
• 2:44: There he is! Angry Keyboard Player! YES!
• What the… angry keyboard player cut his hair! No! Noooooooooo!!!! This can’t… this can’t be… noooo!
• 3:40: YES! The heavy part.
• 3:44: Did the drummer really just hit his cymbals UPWARDS from the bottom?
• 4:05: Angry Keyboard Player’s windmill doesn’t quite have the same effect without the long hair :( Man, this sucks. He may as well just start taking Prozac and stop being so angry all the time.
• OK, I totally get it now. This video is about AKP cutting his hair, and his shorn locks are obviously what’s in that white urn. The synchronized dancers are doing some kind of ritual to mourn this very sad loss.

Swallow the Sun’s slightly less angry and less hairy Emerald Forest And The Blackbird comes out on February 1st via Spinefarm Records.

-VN