Metallica have released behind-the-scenes footage showing the making of the video for new single Lux Æterna.
The five-minute clip shows the band filming the video on a sound stage with director Tim Saccenti. It features them playing while encircled by TV screens and enveloped by an immersive laser display. At one point, guitarist Kirk Hammett says, “Whoah, it looks like we’re playing inside a frigging volcano.”
Elsewhere in the clip, Rob Trujillo points out that the song’s arrangement was “different than it was three months ago”, suggesting the band were still working on the track until relatively recently.
Lux Æterna is the first single from the band’s upcoming 11th album, 72 Seasons, released on April 14 2023. Produced by Greg Fidelman with James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, and clocking in at over 77 minutes, the 12-track 72 Seasons is Metallica’s follow-up to 2016’s Hardwired…To Self-Destruct.
On the concept behind the album title, James Hetfield says: “72 seasons. The first 18 years of our lives that form our true or false selves. The concept that we were told ‘who we are’ by our parents. A possible pigeonholing around what kind of personality we are.
“I think the most interesting part of this is the continued study of those core beliefs and how it affects our perception of the world today. Much of our adult experience is reenactment or reaction to these childhood experiences. Prisoners of childhood or breaking free of those bondages we carry.”
