Avatar’s “A Secret Door”: Call to Escape

From spirals, negative self-talk, and apathy

https://youtu.be/mKqVB_e8u5w?si=wPYISiFEiq-dm7rB

Harsh Awakening

Just a short piece today as I face down a busy and anxious week; as always consider checking out some of my past work if you’re craving more!

Anyone who’s opened a few of my articles this year will have a sense of how much I’ve recently been enjoying the music of Avatar, a Swedish heavy metal group who consistently explore dark and absurd themes while endlessly experimenting with their style and sound.

One of their songs that I’ve been meaning to reflect on for a while is ‘A Secret Door’, off of their 2020 album Hunter Gatherer. The album itself is arguably the group's darkest and most serious, with 'Child' and 'Gun' being deeply haunting in their own ways and 'When All But Force Has Failed' being my go-to track for screaming and raging at the world. This heavy tone marked a very notable shift from the band's previous record, Avatar Country (2018), which had delivered a much lighter, parodic look at monarchy and nationalism. Combined with all the other downers of 2020, it's easy to see why Hunter Gatherer met mixed reactions and is generally forgotten about these days.

I partially mention that context because I think it's an interesting parallel to 'A Secret Door' itself. (Make sure you watch the music video above!) In a lot of Avatar's songs (and Epica's, for that matter), there's a notable division between the innocence and wonder of the clean vocals and the anger and bitterness of the harsh vocals; it's a dynamic that it's easy to become familiar with and begin to subconsciously accept.

It was only recently that I realized 'A Secret Door' intentionally plays on and breaks that paradigm, with the beautiful and seductive clean vocals constantly trying to give up and sink into spirals, depression and apathy—while the harsh (and louder chorus) vocals represent a screaming wake up call to break free with action, mindfulness and hope. It's a haunting way of conveying how easy it is to passively slip into darker moods, and how jarring it can be to finally, actively choose to break free.

The music video elevates this already deeply affecting song to new levels, with dancer Mpululu Ntuve's character trapped alongside her inner demons. To me their struggle is a beautiful and resonant depiction of living with anxiety, depression and especially negative self-talk, as we see the angry and abusive figure keeping her scared and off-balance until she finally finds the courage to fight back and look for an escape.

The lyrics say that "the door will show before we land", which I find a remarkable nod to how difficult it is to escape these unhealthy mental patterns: it feels almost impossible to just find improvement on your own, with no momentum behind you. But possibilities for hope, help and connection will come your way if you open yourself up to them—and if you look for the door, it will show before you land. (I've previously written about another song with a similar message.)

Art by Omu Rizer

Find Your Door

This song only gets more and more interesting as I continue to think on it, but as I said above, time is short today. Maybe I'll revisit it at some point.

I find a lot of emotional depth and resonance in this type of music, but 'A Secret Door' manages to go a step beyond with how it lyrically, structurally and visually asks us to break free of our own mental prisons and abusers and take care of ourselves.

Of course, it can also be very difficult to even recognize when we're trapped in these patterns, and I hope that simply bringing it up is enough to kickstart someone's mindfulness—just as Avatar hoped when they released this track into the world.

I'd love to hear what this song means to you; whether it resonates and any different responses you have to it.

Thanks for reading and until next time <3