The Infernal Sea/Old Corpse Road - Insidious Art And Serpentine Rites (Split 7")

Three Sword Records
2014

Limited to a mere 250 copies on orange vinyl, "Insidious Art And Serpentine Rites" is a spilt 7" featuring East England's The Infernal Sea (who are no strangers to splits having just released one back in 2013 with Belgium's Disinterred) and Darlington, Co Durham, N.E. England-based Old Corpse Road (same thing back in 2012 only with U.K. act The Meads of Asphodel). While I have previous experience with the first (having covered both their 2012 full-length output, "Call of the Augur" and their 2013 EP, "The Crypt Sessions") it sure seems as if this is/was my first taste of Old Corpse Road....and it was a good taste. More on that later though as let's start with The Infernal Sea. For those of you that don't know the name then let me be the first to introduce you to what is undoubtedly one of the more vile and evil black metal acts out there! The Infernal Sea, whose contribution "Tannis Root" takes it's sweet time building up the tension before finally kicking things off around the 2:04 mark(!), play (old-school, somewhat crusty) black metal with overtly satanic/demonic lyrics and an ear fine-tuned towards crushing riffs and grizzly vocals! At more then six minutes in length it's fairly unrelenting and most certainly unrepentant! Meanwhile Old Corpse Road, who come with the promise of  "folk metal leanings with epic tunes focusing on British folklore" waste no time at all with their number "The Sockburn Worm". Right from the start they end up bum-rushing the listener with UTTER-BRUTALITY disguised as music and while (as promised) there are moments of (somewhat) clarity in which folk metal comes into play, overall this is one NASTY piece of black metal violence! Of the two cuts it's most definitely the stand out number as it brings something different to the picture with it's inclusion of folk metal while simultaneously keeping the listener on edge thanks to the unnerving aspect of the song's construction! Kudos to Three Swords Records for having the initiative to stack (back-to-back) two very distinct black metal acts onto what will most certainly be a collectors item! Due to be released in April, and (as previously mentioned) on orange vinyl to boot, "Insidious Art And Serpentine Rites" is one split 7" that I will be looking to add to my own collection and one that I most certainly recommend to black metal enthusiasts!

http://threeswordsrecords.bigcartel.com/product/the-infernal-sea-old-corpse-road-split