Last year, Austin, TX musician Matt Hobart—otherwise known as Scaphoid—released his first LP, Absent Passages, via Shunu Records. Picking up right where 2016’s Dies Mercurii EP left off, the instrumental sequence was produced by genre legend Jamie King (BTBAM, Scale the Summit). Every track presented an exhilarating and remarkable array of tightly arranged and wildly multifaceted collages that (as I wrote in my “Top Albums of 2020” feature) conjured icons like Steven Wilson, TesseracT, An Endless Sporadic, Pink Floyd, Opeth, and Agalloch. That said, its second track—"Shores of Ruin"—was easily its standout selection, and luckily, Hobart has just released a stunning visualizer to go along with the tune.
With its utterly gripping fusion of melodic acoustic guitar strums, piercing electric guitarwork, and malleable syncopation, “Shores of Ruin” is likely one of the greatest instrumental progressive/folk metal tracks you’ll ever hear. It’s no wonder, then, why Hobart chose to give it a new music video to fully exploit its enigmatic vivacity. Created by prior collaborator Oleg Rooz (who’s also worked with Jinjer, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Monuments), the piece is framed around the artwork of Christiane Seeger. Hobart clarifies:
After the album came out, Christiane Seeger tagged me in about five paintings she did that were based on “Shores of Ruin.” I thought they were great and asked if I could do a music video based on them. She agreed and also said that I could use pretty much any art of hers I wanted. I decided to contact Oleg Rooz to do a video since he did a great job on the video for “Marauder.”
Naturally, Rooz took a similar approach to create this one, with myriad effects and manipulations (akin to looking through a kaleidoscope) adding personality and intrigue to Seeger’s already absorbing imagery. Combined with Hobart’s fascinating instrumentation, the “Shores of Ruin” video is immensely compelling.
Let us know what you think of “Shores of Ruin” in the comments section below, and be sure to check out Absent Passages in full via Scaphoid’s Bandcamp.
