Sparzanza brings Hollywood to their hometown Karlstad in Sweden, paying a tribute to the upcoming movie Blade Runner 2049 on ‘Announcing the End

29th September 2017 0 By Jon Deaux

When the Swedish metal band Sparzanza started planning the music video for the title track of their upcoming album “Announcing The End”, they were determined to create something different from five guys playing their instruments in a rough setting. Both the director, Mattias Larsson and the band are fans of the first Blade Runner movie from the 80’s and wanted to pay a tribute to the upcoming movie Blade Runner 2049.

Taken from the brilliant new Sparzanza album ‘Announcing the End’ Out October 13^th on Despotz Records
Stream ‘Announcing the End’ on Soundcloud – https://soundcloud.com/despotz/sparzanza-announcing-the-end-1/s-NehhN
This project was extra interesting since no one had seen the whole movie, but only had the movie trailers for inspiration. A version of a trailer to a movie that nobody’s seen was a fun idea, but also a challenge.

In the selection of actors Sparzanza only chose to work with actors from the area around Karlstad and Värmland. Working with Swedish actor Johan Östling was an obvious choice. Johan is known from Swedish director Ulf Malmros’ movies; ”Smala Sussie”, ”Bröllopsfotografen” and ”Mammas Pojkar”. Last spring he won the Swedish celebrity version of the TV show “The Great Bake Off” and he is currently working as one of the leading roles in the new season of the TV series; “Ack Värmland” that will air at Swedish TV4 this fall. Johan is a former musician colleague to the band and didn’t hesitate to act in the video, (even if he still hasn’t returned the keys to their rehearsal room after 15 years!).

Anders Louthander, (the Harrison Ford of Karlstad) is also has a small part in “Ack Värmland” alongside Johan this fall. Anders is tall and strong, but the band guitarist Magnus Eronen managed to leave him battered and bruised after one of the music video’s staged fight scenes.

Sparzanza wanted to record the whole music video in Karlstad and they put a lot of work into finding the right futuristic settings from the movie in the Swedish small town. Some of the settings are also interesting to Sparzanza fans, having recorded some of the scenes at the same places where the band has taken a lot of their band photos and pictures for previous album artworks.

The first single, ‘Vindication’, from Sparzanza’s upcoming album got more than 100 000 Spotify streams in a few weeks and is still on the playlist at Planet Rock radio.
‘Announcing the End’ is the second single and the title track from the upcoming album that will be released through Despotz Records October 13th.

‘Announcing the End’ cast;

Johan Östling – Ryan Gosling / Officer K
Anders Louthander – Harrison Ford / Rick Deckard
Mariell Sjöström – Ana De Armas / Joi
Hugo Lindstedt – Jared Leto
Lina Jansson – replicant
Linus Egborg – bad guy 1
Magnus Eronen – bad guy 2

More on Sparzanza

Formed in 1996, Sweden’s Sparzanza have, over the course of two decades and seven albums, built a formidable fanbase, brought together by the band’s dark, heavy and melodic metal, driven by huge guitars and unforgettable hooks.

New album, ‘Announcing the End’ captures the sound of a band at the height of their powers. From the ball-breaking title song, through the melodic charge of ‘One Last Breath’ onto the powerful first single ‘Vindication’, ‘Announcing the End’ is very much a statement of intent from a band with plenty of road miles under their belt. With appearances at a number of well-known European festivals, including Sweden Rock and Sauna Open Air, as well as numerous European tours.

Sparzanza