Urutaa

Alien Weaponry’s first single ‘Urutaa’ was released in late 2016, following their triumph at the Smokefree Rockquest and Pacifica Beats. The band won media attention for their inclusion of te reo Māori in metal music. The video sees them performing on a soundstage, interspersed with a pocket watch motif. The watch is a reference to a series of incidents between Māori and Pākehā in the early 1800s, which resulted in an attack by Māori on visiting ship The Boyd. The band used the incident as a metaphor for continuing misunderstandings "between cultures, generations and individuals".

The traditional kind of music I guess was haka, and we thought haka sounded a lot like metal...

– Vocalist Lewis de Jong, on similarities between haka and heavy metal inspiring the band to write lyrics in te reo, Te Karere, September 2016

Key Cast & Crew

Dave Thomson

Director

Ross Mastrovich

Editor

Piotr Kwasnik

Cinematographer