UK metalcore band Architects have released a powerful tribute with “Doomsday”. The brand new track and music video is in honour of the loss of their late guitarist Tom Searle to cancer last year. “Doomsday” was a track that Tom himself had begun, and the rest of Architects completed on his behalf.
Powerful imagery and effects in the video present the members of Architects as interconnected beings of light, perhaps leaning into the spiritual elements of life and death. The heavy-hitting brilliance of Architects’ metalcore perfection and honest lyrics express the weight of their experience in the loss of their friend. They are having to make sense of this; with how they feel and with how others are interacting with them about it.
Lyrically, platitudes from other people such as ‘what will be will be’ have light shone upon them, with the band stating clearly how these things do not and cannot erase the darkness they have experienced and continue to experience as a result of Tom’s passing.
As well as acting as a note to those (presumably well-meaning) people, “Doomsday” is also a beautiful letter to their friend; movingly exploring the question of how they are supposed to carry on, and affirming that they need to get through this darkness for their friend.
“I have to rebuild now it’s over
Maybe now I’m lost I can live
Souls don’t break they bend
But I sometimes forget
I have to do this for you
And the only way out is through”
The band members soon remain only as particles of light; as these malleable souls, and the imagery shows a person who was in meditation ascending into light. The video closes with that same person connecting the light above them to the light in their palm, feeling like a powerful connection across space and time, and a new understanding.
It’s very emotionally moving, as it should be, and a beautiful tribute. Watch:
