If you want to make music that rips people’s heads off and dropkicks them forcefully up the arse-pipe of Satan himself, you won’t achieve it by sitting around and feeling sorry for yourself. This is a lesson that Infected Dead learned on day one. The result is that every last second of the band’s debut EP, Archaic Malevolence, leaps from the speakers like a slavering wolverine, demanding your attention and, if necessary, large chunks of your face. These boys have no time to muck about.
“A few years ago we were all in different death metal bands in Kent and a couple of them did pretty well,” recalls vocalist Lou. “But due to life commitments, people’s ability levels and general musical differences none of us were really doing what we wanted to do. So we put Infected Dead together to push ourselves technically and to play more of the type of death metal that we’re into. Our first year as a band probably couldn’t have gone any better!”
After winning their home county’s Metal 2 The Masses event last spring and a subsequent debut on Bloodstock’s New Blood stage in August, Infected Dead wasted little time piecing together a debut that promises to rattle teeth from here to Hell’s gates. Despite having a fervently modern sound, it’s hard to imagine this five-piece struggling to win over fussy purists, not least because the EP is full to the brim with the deathliest of death metal subject matter.
“All the songs are heavily influenced by the works of HP Lovecraft and those who expanded on his Cthulhu Mythos,” says Lou. “But the overarching theme is horrible things returning from the dead, which kind of feels like an allegory for how Infected Dead was born, from three dead bands! There’s a track about the return of Nyarlathotep, a more cultish take on the Re-animator story, Lovecraftian bastardisations of a zombie apocalypse and reincarnation lore… and an ode to Cthulhu!”
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Bridging the gap between the shiny, precise attack of the new school and the arcane horrors of the old is a difficult trick to pull off, but Infected Dead are already closer than most. As the world grows progressively more fucked up, music that reflects the brutality around us seems likely to become more and more popular. Don’t bet against Kent’s sharpest death squad leading the charge.
“It feels like there’s been a huge rise in extreme metal from right across the spectrum over the last few years,” Lou notes. “There doesn’t seem to be a prevalent style on the more mainstream side of metal so maybe that’s led more people to seek out new stuff. It’s easier to find new bands than it’s ever been and for now, at least, people seem to be thirsty for heavier things.”
Archaic Malevolence is out now via Hostile Media.
