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Ajattara - "Suru" (Video Premiere)

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It’s no surprise that the live video has endured. As the music industry has shrunk drastically since the heyday of music videos, this format has endured as the most efficient way to promote a band’s worth to unfamiliar listeners. They tap into a base sense of community, showing the effect that a band has on a crowd naturally encourages you to have the same reaction.

Because of this, I can’t fault Ajattara for choosing such an obvious format for the video for “Suru”. Editing or no, this video proves that Ajattara have what it takes to hold a crowd. To anyone literate in the body language of heavy metal, the determined grimaces and synchronized nods are proof of sincere engagement, if only for a moment.

But what makes the “Suru” video truly a metal video is that it takes one further step by incorporating more cinematic footage of landscapes and lone figures among the wilderness. These images aren’t reliant on what the band is doing on stage so much as what their music is doing to the crowd.

Transportation is one of heavy metal’s strengths. “Suru” is no exception. It’s video captures what the fans envision when they hear it washing over them in the night air. In this setting the rolling triplets are more than rock solid rhythmic technique, they are the sensation of rippling waves under your feet. The eerie reverb isn’t a production choice, it’s the silence you hear on a morning walk through an empty forest. This quality is exactly what makes squares revolt from most metal. It’s a level of visual earnesty one inch too far normies. But Ajattara could give a fuck. “Suru” opens the path to the communal spirit of metal and encourages you to step into the circle.

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