Plagues and black metal have a long supremely fetid history, from Darkthrone’s Plaguewielder through countless acts casting a pox on humanity to 1349, named after the year the Black Death made its way to Norway.
Documenting England’s experience of huge egg-like tumours, necrotised flesh, bloody vomit and towns full of stinking corpses, Fenlands black metallers The Infernal Sea have produced a suitably ravaging in the album in the form of The Great Mortality. Released last February by the resurrected cult label, Cacophonous Records, it’s a blackened-knuckle ride that takes in moment of sweeping grandeur, icy, Nordic-style diatribes and charged, blast-ridden grooves, all with the unwavering focus of an amphetamine-fuelled angel of death.
Having offered up further proof that British black metal is a resurgent force, The Infernal Sea are now offering further insight into The Great Mortality, with an enlightening, two-part track-by-track commentary spelling out the spread of the Black Death through the album’s narrative. Expect tales of appetite-ruining putrefaction, religious fanaticism and numerous atrocities perpetrated by said fanatics. So if you’re sitting comfortably, don’t expect that to last and enter the world of The Great Mortality below!
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And order The Great Mortality here!