Hump Day Hot Ticket: Signum Regis “Unfold the Mystery”

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It's been a while since I last wrote about Slovakian power metal band Signum Regis, and they've had a new video out for a couple of months that I have been meaning to write about, so let's get to it!

Right off the bat, this video reminds me of Metallica's video for “The Unforgiven”: there is an old man standing by a wall, searching for something hidden on the other side. If I didn't know any better, I would even think it was the same old man! (Except that the one in the Metallica video was ancient 25 years ago, so I would be very surprised if he were even still alive anymore, much less still actively working in music videos!)

The only slight difference (besides this video being shot in color, and not black-and-white), there are little doors in the wall, rather than an old man carving through a wall to find a door, like in “The Unforgiven”. The similarities continue when a little boy on the other side of the wall is seen dragging a chair over to the shelves lined with books and papers. Meanwhile, a younger man sorts through the papers, as they turn to dust, and sand is seen pouring out all over his clothes. On one side of the wall, the young man angrily shoves the papers away, while on the other side, the old man sits quietly and writes. Each man is seen before a mirror: the younger one looking anguished at the passage of time, the old one looking regretful yet resigned; all as the young boy looks on, and the sand in an hourglass runs down.

At this point, the boy finds an odd trinket on the ground, which seems to have some connection to the things written on the papers tacked to the wall. (OK, can I just say that the shot here of the sand running from the old man's fingers is way too similar to “The Unforgiven” for it to be coincidental? Not that this a bad thing!) The video ends with each man on his respective side of the wall, growing increasingly frustrated as they try to learn what is on the other side. Perhaps it is a good metaphor for the way parents and children—or those of different generations in general—constantly try to understand each other, but never fully succeed.

For more information on Signum Regis, visit their official website.

Hump Day Hot Ticket: Signum Regis “Damnatio Ad Bestias”

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I'm back this week with another band I have featured in the past. Yes, this is going to be a trend over the next couple of weeks—I promise I have new music to share—but there is a lot of great new music from quite a few of these “past guests”, and I can't pass it up.

Slovenian power metal band Signum Regis is back with new material, and they have a very cool-looking lyric video to accompany the first single, “Damnatio Ad Bestias”—which translates loosely as the act of feeding the Christians to the lions. Signum Regis makes no effort to hide that they are a Christian band, and as a fan of power metal and the storytelling style that gives the genre so much of its identity, I see their recanting of Biblical tales as no different than similar songs about mythology, fantasy, or other historical events. Power metal lyrics are steeped in such themes, so the subject matter that Signum Regis touches upon does not seem so out of place to me. As long as the lyrics can convey a sense of imagination and an ability to open up a world through song, the subject matter can be about anything, as far as I am concerned.

Musically, this song is a lot heavier, and vocally more “brutal” than the song I reviewed here previously. The vibe matches the lyrical tone of the song, which is a vivid description of the ancient form of capital punishment. As the lyrics scroll across the screen, we see animation of gladiators running for their lives as the wild animals chase them, and the crowd makes sport of their fate. “Beasts can eat our flesh, but they cannot kill our souls”, a lyric proudly proclaims. To be honest, describing a death by way of getting torn limb from limb by lions...does it get more metal than that?

For more information on Signum Regis, or to pre-order their upcoming album, Decennium Primum, visit their official website.

Hump Day Hot Ticket: Signum Regis “Living Well”

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I come across a lot of interesting music looking for new entries for this feature. This week my musical travels take me all the way to Slovakia, home of power-metal band Signum Regis, who have been around for nearly a decade. Some websites suggest that they are a Christian band—I know, some of you are already envisioning those Stryper gigs from the ’80s, where the band is throwing out Bibles to the audience—but hey, I'm not about to let labels or preconceived notions get in the way of enjoying good music, so why should you? And what is wrong with a band wanting to use music to spread their good message? Plenty of other bands do it by way of socio-political means, and I've got nothing against that either. In fact, one of the first power metal bands I ever heard was Ohio's Jacob's Dream, an openly Christian band who wrote songs based on Biblical epics the same way that other bands in their genre use mythology or fantasy. So I am certainly not offput by a band who wishes to infuse religious imagery into their music.

Speaking of the ’80s, I grew up a quintessential ’80s kid, in that I had my butt parked in front of the television, watching MTV like every other kid (my mom even says that as a child, I watched MTV more than cartoons, and if you know my love of ’80s cartoons, that's saying a lot!). So, when watching videos as a kid, I became particularly fond of the “mini-movie” video format—the type of video that told a little story during the song. Sometimes those videos re-enacted the message of the song perfectly; other times the story seemed to have nothing to do with the song, but it was always interesting to see the kinds of stories that could be told in 3-4 minutes. In fact, when listening to music, it became part of your psyche to imagine what a video for that song would look like, and the disappointment you sometimes felt when the actual video was nothing like you'd pictured at all!

On to the Signum Regis video. The band is rocking out in a jail cell, while the camera cuts to a man in another cell. He appears to be a boxer or MMA fighter of some kind. As the video proceeds, we see him in a match while a seedy bookie is off to the side of the ring, collecting bets. Clearly the fight is fixed. While contemplating his loss, he meets a young lady. As their courtship progresses, they are seen walking together, when the crooked bookie and one of his fighters proceed to assault him and the girl. In defending her honor, he ends up going to jail, where we see his single-minded devotion in returning to his girl, who may or may not be waiting for him. Without giving away the complete ending, let's just say that she was waiting for him, but she was not alone!

Musically, the band has a fantastic power metal sound; some elements of their sound reminded me of Seventh Wonder, who might be considered more prog-metal, but like I said, labels really don't matter much to me. The band's vocalist has a voice that is a little more gravelly or rough-around-the-edges than your standard power metal vocalist, but I think he sounds great. This video is a little over a year old, so I look forward to checking out more of their music and hopefully sharing it here!

For more information on Signum Regis, visit their official website.

Special thanks to Scott Johnson.