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

Band photo

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.