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Music

Hexvessel's New Video for "Drugged Up on the Universe" Is All Mystic Spirits and Manson Vibes

"You don't need drugs to get high on the nature of the universe!"

Finland's premier band of psychedelic forest folk rockers, Hexvessel, released a brilliant new album not too long ago in When We Are Death. Not content to send their creation out into the world on its lonesome, vocalist and guitarist Mat McNerney and his compatriots have conjured up a variety of music videos to serve as accompaniments. Their latest effort—for the looping tune "Drugged Up on the Universe"—is their darkest and strangest yet (which is really saying something, if you know Hexvessel!).

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McNerney explained the video's striking, otherworldly imagery, telling us via email that, "The video references the death of the hippie movement, with a Manson-like shamanic figure, or malevolent spirit. Bringing to life 60s/70s counter culture in an Eyes Wide Shut orgy of drugs, the Alice-like central character takes a spiritual journey. Enticed by the spirit, who has entered her expanded consciousness, her mind expands. She is lead outside and discovers there is a wider universe than the one she knows.

It's a nature mystic metaphor for how that era has influenced the environmental movement which Hexvessel feel a part of. If you let it in, the spirit of nature will find you and expand your consciousness. You don't need drugs to get high on the nature of the universe!"

Get high on life (and trippy Finnish forest folk) below—When We Are Death is out now on Century Media Records.

Kim Kelly is high on life on Twitter​.