Polaris recently released a statement solidifying their intent to continue on the promotional trail of their new album Fatalism. It comes in the wake of the passing of their guitarist Ryan Siew, which they announced the news of last month. They also stated that they will still be playing the tours that they had pencilled in because “We want to do this for ourselves and for Ryan”.
And so that is where we land with the release of “Nightmare“, the second single to be pulled from Fatalism. And it is an absolute bruiser, as you would expect. With triumphant riffs, powerful sentiments and sort of breakdowns that separate skin and bone, it is masterful in its delivery.
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Drummer Daniel Furnari had this to say about the song’s themes, which feel incredibly potent right now:
“Nightmare is a reflection on the constant state of fear that the world at large seems to have lived in for much of the past couple of years. The feeling of waking up every day in a dystopia of uncertainty and anxiety where nothing really feels safe anymore. The more I thought about it, the more I arrived at the conclusion that maybe this fear was the biggest thing we all had in common during a time of such great division – that our collective dread was our greatest unifier. That concept then really helped to shape the thematic direction of the rest of the record.”
“This was the second song that was written for the album. It started with that chorus melody, chords and lyrics, which I brought to the guys to build a song around. We fleshed it out on our first writing trip to the mountains, and it developed into a very riff-heavy song, with the guitar being passed back and forth a lot between Rick and Ryan and all of us weighing in, so I think we all had an early attachment to it for that reason.”
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The track comes alongside an epic video with incredible scope and devastating imagery. Polaris stated that they wished to continue with the release of the visuals that include Ryan as well, following discussions with his family.
Daniel had this to add on the subject:
“We created this video with our friend Ben Wrigley, AKA Third Eye Visuals, who found some amazing locations and imagery to help us convey the track when paired with his brilliant editing skills. This was the second of three music videos we filmed with Ryan earlier this year.
“It has been a challenging and very emotional task to complete these videos in light of what has happened, but after careful discussion with his family, we collectively felt that we wanted to share with the world the final things that Ryan created with us. We will proudly cherish the memories of him contained in this footage and hope you will too.”
Polaris will release Fatalism on September 29 via SharpTone Records. It will also feature the extraordinary “Inhumane”, which sounds an awful lot like this:
