Avatar are fighting the good fight. Having delivered rousing thrasher “In the Airwaves” and their seafaring “Captain Goat” earlier this year, the Swedish act have now unveiled a piping-hot metal anthem they call “Tonight We Must be Warriors.”
It turns out all three songs will be part of Avatar’s newly announced next full-length: Don’t Go in the Forest. While the album title is pretty foreboding, “Tonight We Must be Warriors” is a more approachably jovial metal cut full of chunkily swung rhythms and golden guitar solos, along with a taut and tweety flute hook.
The music video is feverishly inspired. It begins with vintage sepiatone color-grading and Golden Age pulp storytelling — vocalist Johannes Eckerström doubles down on acting duties while both singing the song in the skies as an omniscient Specter-like character, and as a more human-sized hero hoisting a Poppins-propelling flying umbrella
The vid eventually heads into a village in the skies, where Eckerström bands together with the locals — in fact, these are his Avatar bandmates — to slingshot rocks at what could best be described as Shrek’s cousin fused with a Fifties chintzy UFO.
“In days of isolation and despair, maybe we need to be reminded that we are not alone,” Eckerström said in a statement. “We are one of many. Maybe we also need a reminder that the burden is on our shoulders? To get it done, we need to do the fighting ourselves.”
There might be some additional allusions to the Wizard of Oz and Disney’s Up. In other words, the vid’s a wild ride. You can see for yourself up above.
As for Don’t Go in the Forest, the record arrives October 31st via Black Waltz Records. It’s been confirmed that “Tonight We Must be Warriors” is the lead-off track, and is followed by “In the Airwaves” and “Captain Goat,” but the remainder of the 10-song tracklisting has yet to be revealed. That’s the kinda IT-ish, kinda Red Balloon-referencing album cover down below.
What Eckerström will say, though, is that the Halloween-timed treat is “filled to the brim with stuff we’ve never done before.”
“It’s all songs and concepts we haven’t been close to touch until now,” he continued. “The mind is wild and we have lost ourselves in the darkest woods, filled with memories, and fantasies. Forbidden thoughts that must be spoken.”
As previously reported, Avatar hit the U.S. soon for a fall headline tour. The month-long trip begins in early November, and finds Avatar supported by New Zealand’s Alien Weaponry and deathwestern storytellers SpiritWorld. Those tour dates can be found here
Avatar’s international touring schedule — which includes 2026 concert dates with Metallica — can be found here.
