Shinedown has taken a big creative swing with the music video for “Planet Zero,” the title track to their upcoming seventh studio album.
Singer Brent Smith says in a statement on the video embedded below, “We wanted the first visual of ‘Planet Zero’ to be unlike anything we have done previously. We chose to work with visionary director Charles De Meyer. We did not want a traditional music video feel – we wanted avant-garde, thought-provoking and surreal. Make no mistake, there is a message in the visual, a warning of what is to come, if society does not wake up, and demand the truth be told. Welcome to PLANET ZERO…”
As previously reported, Planet Zero centers around a robot character named Cyren. Shinedown bassist/producer Eric Bass said in a statement, “Cyren’s the robot welcoming you to Planet Zero, which could potentially be the future we all live in: a place with zero sense, zero accountability, zero tolerance for any opinion different from what you hear on Twitter or TV.”
Further detailing the concept album, Smith said in a recent interview with Loudwire Nights,”The record is not a complete political record, thought-provoking record in regards to, ‘This is what we think and you should think that way.’ It’s the complete opposite of that. What it is, it’s historical. Nobody writes records like these anymore.”
Smith also added, “It’s heavy stuff. There’s a lot of psychology to it… This band’s been writing about mental health for 20 years. There’s a lot of triumph on this record, though, too — an immense amount of triumph. But there’s also elements here where some people will say that it’s a big more aggressive than usual, but it’s necessary, because the only way to get the point across in some of this material, we have to be aggressive. This was a record that was written for the people, by the people.”
Planet Zero comes out on April 22 and is available for pre-save on streaming platforms here, while exclusive formats and merch bundles are available for pre-order at Store.Shinedown.com.