Video Premiere: AMARANTHE's 'Countdown'

Swedish melodic metallers AMARANTHE have released the official music video for the song “Countdown”. The track is taken from the band’s upcoming fifth album “Helix”, due out October 19 through Spinefarm Records. The disc was recorded at Hansen Studios in Ribe, Denmark with producer Jacob Hansen (VOLBEAT, EPICA, DELAIN). The follow-up to 2016’s “Maximalism” marks the band’s first release with DYNAZTY‘s Nils Molin, who officially joined AMARANTHE in July 2017 as the replacement for Jake E.

The “Countdown” video was once again directed by Patric Ullaeus of Revolver Film Company, who has previously worked with DIMMU BORGIR, LACUNA COIL, IN FLAMES and KAMELOT, among others.

Four albums into its career, AMARANTHE has racked up north of 118 million YouTube views and half a billion song streams, has landed at No. 1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart three times, and possesses a panoply of gold and platinum discs for albums and singles alike. With “Helix”, AMARANTHE takes another leap forward in its sonic evolution.

“Helix” proves the band has refined its melodic sensibilities ever further while retaining a cutting-edge metal assault. The band is as massively aggressive as ever and the first single “365” is the perfect example of such — its seductively velvety mix of contemporary pop and modern metal will take up residence in your brain for days.

Guitarist Olof Mörck comments: “The ‘Helix’ album itself is a statement, a declaration and an assertion that we are here to stay, and that the songwriting and musicianship has been honed and maximized to the highest level yet on an AMARANTHE record. The process of composing this album with Elize [Ryd] was as inspiring as it was smooth, and from a composer’s and arranger’s perspective, a dream collaboration. The time is nigh, the die is cast, and all the stars are right: the ‘Helix’ will steamroll across the globe, and in its wake, the touring machine that is AMARANTHE will conquer all!”

Vocalist and composer Elize Ryd offered her take, saying: “‘Helix’ describes the concept of how the past forms us and how life makes us become. No excuses, no regrets. We express the challenges and the uplifting moments in time, and all that in between with the sounds that we love. We want to dedicate this album to all the fighters and friends out there.”

“Helix” track listing:

01. The Score
02. 365
03. Inferno
04. Countdown
05. Helix
06. Dream
07. GG6
08. Breakthrough Stardust
09. My Haven
10. Iconic
11. Unified
12. Momentum

Ryd told Radio Q that “Helix” was completed in under five months. “I know we’re crazy, but that’s what we like,” she said. “We like people to be crazy. Just go there, do your shit — do things you wouldn’t expect yourself to be able to do. When the [record] label asked, ‘Are you guys sure you can have enough time to write a new album?’ And we do not like to say ‘no,’ so we said, ‘Of course. Yes.’ And we did it.”

Added Mörck: “And we figured it was also a good thing for us, to actually push ourselves a little bit. If we sit down to write music — me and Elize together have been writing this whole album — it’s never happened even once that we haven’t composed something. So when the label asked, I was, at first, like, ‘Okay, this could really be pushing it.’ So in the back of my head, I was thinking initially that, ‘Okay, if this goes south somehow, then maybe we’ll have to push [back] the recording — worst-, worst-case scenario.’ But it just turned out the other way around. Because it was only two months, and we were constantly in the zone — day and night, every single day, composing all the time — so you never lost the focus of it. And I think it really, really helped the album, because it’s a very focused album… So we just took a break from touring for two months to write it. and then another two and a half [months] to record it, and, poof, there was an album. Which is, at least in our opinion, the best album that we’ve ever composed.”

In support of the new album, AMARANTHE will embark on a European tour with POWERWOLF in October and November.

AMARANTHE is:

Elize Ryd – Vocals
Henrik Englund Wilhelmsson – Screams
Nils Molin – Vocals
Olof Mörck – Guitar, Keys
Johan Andreassen – Bass
Morten Løve Sørensen – Drums