(written by Islander)
Next month the always interesting Personal Records will release a new album by The Infernal Deceit, a German duo consisting of guitarist/bassist C and vocalist R, ably aided on the album by session drummer Jörg Uken. This new full-length, The True Harmful Black, is the successor to the band’s independently released 2021 album debut The Formless Graves (a vinyl release followed via Idiots Records in 2022).
Having overlooked that debut, the new album has provided our own introduction to The Infernal Deceit‘s talents, and it is (to put it mildly) a wonderfully eye-opening discovery. The “elevator pitch” is that the band have drawn inspiration from melodic blackened death metal from the mid-to-late ’90s. Delving deeper, the PR materials make comparative references to “prime Unanimated, second- or third-album Sacramentum, Darkside-era Necrophobic, the lone Vinterland album, ’90s Naglfar or Ebony Tears or Sweden’s Eucharist, or even In Flames‘ never-sullied The Jester Race.”
All of that is very enticing to people like us who found our way into extreme metal through bands such as those, but even more enticing is the immediate experience of The Infernal Deceit‘s new music, which is equal parts thrilling and chilling, ferocious and epic. We have a great example in the album track “Schwarz” that we’re premiering today.
To put it succinctly, “Schwarz” is a marvel. Dynamic, elaborate, and thoroughly involving for a listener, it creates a kind of riveting pageantry, dramatically portraying sensations of jubilant madness, diabolical malice, daunting majesty, and even sweeping beauty. It does that through sounds that are both clear and crushing.
“Schwarz” begins with a majestic yet otherworldly overture but then explodes in a surge of blasting and racing drums, brazen chords, and a fiery and maniacally flickering lead-guitar that’s bright in tone and exhilarating to hear. It’s like being caught up in the wild whirl of dervishes or devils, spinning until their ecstasies levitate them.
The vocals are devilish too, but in a different way — gritty, rabid, ravenously snarling, imperious, and frightful. The lead guitar continues to feverishly and wondrously swirl, but the rhythm slows and the music inflicts big, booming jolts, and also heaves and groans. That’s a colder and more fearsome experience, but as the pace slows even further the music becomes eerie, even colder, and more hopeless.
Gradually, the energy spools up again, with the riffage swiftly chugging, the drums clobbering, and those clear-toned melodies swirling again, but more exotic and esoteric this time. The drums launch into a gallop and the riffing rises, expands, and again bursts open in ecstatic delirium. As the end nears, the song manifests both daunting grandeur and electrifying wildness (the vocals are wild too, like a wild beast), but the melody becomes almost pastoral at the end, lush and beautiful.
The new album was mixed and mastered at Soundlodge Studio, and it’s completed with fascinating cover art by Roberto Toderico. Personal Records will release it in CD and digital formats on April 11th. Check the links below for more info, and we also urge you to lead your ears to the album’s first advance track, “The Primordial Maze And The Crawling Chaos“.
PRE-ORDER:
https://www.personal-records.com/product/pre-order-the-infernal-deceit-the-true-harmful-black-cd/
https://personal-records.bandcamp.com/album/the-true-harmful-black
THE INFERNAL DECEIT:
https://www.facebook.com/theinfernaldeceitband/