Polaris’ “Nightmare” Music Video is Their First Since Ryan Siew’s Passing
Australian metalcore outfit Polaris may have already announced their intentions of forging forward in spite of the death of their guitarist Ryan Siew, but it’s another thing entirely to actually do it. Late yesterday evening, the band went forward and released a new music video for their single “Nightmare” that features their late band mate.
As the second of three music videos filmed when Siew was still around, it’s the first new drop after the heartbreaking news. According to Daniel Furnari, the lead up to the video’s release was difficult at times for the surviving members of the band.
“We created this video with our friend Ben Wrigley, AKA Third Eye Visuals, who found some amazing locations and imagery to help us convey the track when paired with his brilliant editing skills. This was the second of three music videos we filmed with [late guitarist] Ryan [Siew] earlier this year. It has been a challenging and very emotional task to complete these videos in light of what has happened, but after careful discussion with his family, we collectively felt that we wanted to share with the world the final things that Ryan created with us. We will proudly cherish the memories of him contained in this footage, and hope you will too.”
News broke of Siew’s death last month, but we still do not know what caused his passing. Regardless, he was a young and bright musician who died far too young at 26 years old.
Still, with an eye on the band’s future, they’re continuing with their touring schedule and the planned release of their upcoming album, Fatalism. Furnari said the new record was a reflection of “the constant state of fear that the world at large seems to have lived in for much of the past couple of years.” Which really is a big mood when you think about it.
“The more I thought about it, the more I arrived at the conclusion that maybe this fear was the biggest thing we all had in common during a time of such great division — that our collective dread was our greatest unifier. That concept then really helped to shape the thematic direction of the rest of the record.
“[‘Nightmare’] was the second song that was written for the album and it started with that chorus melody, chords and lyrics, which I brought to the guys to build a song around. We fleshed it out on our first writing trip to the mountains and it developed into a very riff-heavy song, with the guitar being passed back and forth a lot between Rick and Ryan and all of us weighing in, so I think we all had an early attachment to it for that reason.”
In addition to the release of Fatalism, the band have a scheduled tour in Australia with August Burns Red, Kublai Khan, and Currents this September, with their North American tour to follow afterward with Currents, Varials, and Paledusk. Posters for both tours can be found below.
Fatalism will be released on September 1 via Resist Records in Australia and SharpTone Records for the rest of the world. You can preorder your copy today.
Naturally, we at MetalSucks still extend our deepest condolences to Siew’s friends, family, and bandmates.
