A lot of diverse influences—death growls, clean singing, synths, goth atmospherics—seem to coalesce in the stark new black and white video for the song “Tragedy’s Own,” from Finnish duo the Bleak Picture. The song was originally released independently on the Songs of Longing four-song EP in the digital format more than a year ago, but the Bleak Picture—Jussi Hänninen (guitars/bass/synths) and Tero Ruohonen (vocals) of Autumnfall—went back and added live drums, courtesy of session of drummer Anssi Ikonen, and have re-issued it on Alone records in limited edition vinyl and CD.
The video was filmed by Gure Hitzak and alternates between graveyard scenes and and a darkened, empty performance hall. There’s even a quick nod to the Sisters of Mercy’s Floodland album cover, with vocalist Ruohonen’s face juxtaposed next to a slightly cloud-obscured full moon. The track moves effortlessly from grim and doomy to melancholy and melodic, with much darkness and light. Songs of Longing was self-recorded by the Bleak Picture, with drums recorded at Lucifuge Studio by Danil Venho. It was mixed at DTT Äänitys by Venha and mastered by Dan Swanö at Unisound AB. It can be ordered from the US shop here, the EU shop here and Bandcamp here.
Here’s what Tero Ruohonen had to say about the video:
“I don’t want to go into detail on what the lyrics of the song are about, I’d rather leave that to the listener to dwell on and decide. With this video, however, it was very important to me that we got some theater footage in it and a dark and murky feeling in general. The feeling of emptiness and longing and at times even anger and frustration was something I was personally hoping to channel in this video.”
