The death metal quartet John Frum released an excellent new video today for their debut track, “Presage of Emptiness“. The band features Matt Hollenberg (John Zorn, Cleric) on guitar, Eli Litwin (Bvrden/Intensus/Deveykus) on drums, Derek Rydquist (The Faceless) on vocals, and Liam Wilson (The Dillinger Escape Plan, Starkweather) on bass. The group will release their debut LP A Stirring in the Noos on May 12th via Relapse Records. Six years in the making, the upcoming album promises to be a potent melding of death metal and psychedelia, and if this new track is any indication, this is gonna be quite a trip into the Beyond.
The video for “Presage of Emptiness” is directed by Oleg Rooz, who has worked with Dillinger Escape Plan in the past. Opening with a WARNING for those who might suffer from photosensitivity and seizures, the video’s heavy strobing has an undeniably hypnotic quality. Combining “found footage”, demonic-looking overlays and some seriously twitched-out effects, Rooz creates dream-like imagery that is highly abstract but also filled with mysterious and chilling details. Like Stan Brakhage on a satanic bender, the director uses hypnogogic visuals as a doorway into strange states of consciousness.
