North Atlas - Hypnotist
Scottish band of brothers North Atlas features brothers Leon D Hunter and Cam Hunter with childhood friend Liam ‘Rusty’ Russell. They were raised by the Solway Firth, drawing influence from a wild, affecting landscape dominated by monolithic wind-farms and radar domes.
With previous singles championed by Planet Rock, Kerrang! Radio and BBC Introducing, their immersive sound fills the void between the popular favourites such as Biffy Clyro, Bring Me the Horizon and Nine Inch Nails.
The first in a line of new music to come from the band this year, Hypnotist draws from a surprisingly deep well of influence. On the surface, the band’s latest single explores anxiety’s hypnotic grip on the mind and the desire to understand it.
Vocalist Leon Hunter explains:
After being diagnosed with GAD (anxiety disorder) my doctor gave me some new pills and sent me to a therapist. It was kind of unsettling, I wanted to write something real about the feelings of tension and waves of anxiety we hide away from others.
Delving deeper into this concept, Hunter reveals further layers to the band’s latest release:
Eventually I got to thinking; Throughout our history, humans have always sent people with problems to “healers”. Before we called them doctors, they were known as shamans, using natural ingredients and superstitions to heal. Though we now call it medical science, it all came from a very natural background.
This notion extends most notably to the accompanying music video for Hypnotist. Inspired by the Celtic Beltane tradition, a counterpart festival to Samhain that appears on the pagan calendar, the powerful video for the band’s latest single sees a horned, otherworldly figure twisting its form in a ritualistic dance as North Atlas unleash their menacing and intense performance. Keep an eye out on YouTube for that.
So Hypnotist was released today, Friday 1 May 2020 and is a real gritty piece of heavy rock, starting off with a loud banging almost war drum intro before the guitar riff which drives the song from start to finish kicks-in.
The song paints a vision of anxiety, with its noise and energy whilst depicting imagery of Celtic gods being prayed to by enchanters, druids and the like to rid someone of the noises in their head, lyrically it describes “enchanters, a healer, a preacher, I never listened, I never listened” and the chantable chorus of “round and round a rubiks mind, build it up or break it to pieces, round and round a rubiks mind, build it up or break it to pieces“ highlight the difficulties in living with anxiety.
Hypnotist is a cracking track, discussing a difficult topic, but doing it in a very imaginative way, I loved the song and look forward to hearing more from these Dumfries boys.
Yet another track for my ever growing playlist.
Give Hypnotist a stream now:
https://open.spotify.com/album/6bRjMIbR9CvJfxbcBdeiEn?si=qFZ3KpUFQ9u8BoqmoaHlnw
The notion of Celtic gods extends most notably to the accompanying music video for Hypnotist. Inspired by the Celtic Beltane tradition, a counterpart festival to Samhain that appears on the pagan calendar, the powerful video for the band’s latest single sees a horned, otherworldly figure twisting its form in a ritualistic dance as North Atlas unleash their menacing and intense performance.
The feral, horned creature depicted in the Hypnotist video is Cernunnos, a god associated with growth, hunting and fertility. Bringing this character to life, dancer Aaron Shepherd has a background in MMA and studies contemporary dance in Glasgow.
This rare combination brings a powerful and dextrous style to the video as Hunter explains:
Leon and I were influenced by pagan imagery a lot in our early days of doing music. It's hard not to be, growing up in the middle of nowhere in Scotland.
Hunter muses, discussing the influences behind the single’s accompanying video.
We were drawn to these visuals by wanting to explore our origins, I think that respecting them is important in defining who you are, since it's so easy to become disconnected from them in these fast paced times. I have felt lately that since I'm able to listen to so much music from all over the world online, sometimes as a musician I need to slow down and say to myself, “think about who you are, where you're from and where you fit into all this.”
The video for Hypnotist can be viewed below:
North Atlas can be followed on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter:
https://www.facebook.com/northatlasband/
