07/09/2020 11:29

Serpent Omega

Serpent Omega: 'Land of Darkness' music video unleashed

Swedish doom/sludge metal unit, Serpent Omega, will release their 2nd full-length, 'II' album via Icons Creating Evil Art on September 4th.

Melding sludge, doom, metal, and crust into a unique and sordid brew, Serpent Omega's self-titled debut full-length sold out in a few short months back in 2013. Long-awaited sequel, appropriately titled 'II', was recorded in Stockholm, Sweden by guitarist Jonsson at Dark Prod Studios, mixed at Studio Humbucker by Robert Pehrsson (Runemagick, Death Breath, Robert Pehrsson's Humbucker), and mastered by Magnus Lindberg Productions (Cult Of Luna). To suggest the final product is grotesquely heavy and good is an understatement. With 'II', the Stockholm-based quartet offers a perfect soundtrack to what may well be the end of the world as we know it. It's all here: despair, hopelessness, fury, and perhaps a glimmer of bloody triumph and distant hope in the inevitability of a new beginning. The songs are a pile of bleak upon bleaker riffs that move from a slow and low crawl into d-beat and black metal territory with a smattering of NWOBHM in for good measure.

In advance of its release, Serpent Omega has undraped a video for second single, 'Land of Darkness'. The track is a showcase for vocalist Urskogr's rasped and guttural delivery which is filthier than ever but tempered by clean passages, adding elements of both strength and vulnerability which only deepens the overall sense of a looming end.

Urskogr elaborates, "'Land of Darkness' basically sums up the essence of Serpent Omega with its brutal energy and simple yet complex sound. The lyrics were written by me and Jonsson while we were recording the song. Like most of the stuff Serpent Omega does, we do it together and everyone contributes with a lot of passion. That is usually a really time-consuming process since we rarely agree about stuff in the band, but 'Land of Darkness' was more like binge drinking with Lemmy in comparison to our usual way of working. The riffs were written a while before the lyrics but when they merged together, it was a perfect fit. The song was just there. 'Land of Darkness' needed to be unleashed and it basically wrote itself.

"The video for 'Land of Darkness' feels like a natural extensions of the song. Visually it's a grim experience, where I make an homage to the death goddess Hel empowered by the energy from the band. The set is reminiscent our live performances, with skulls, bones, horns, and feathers which form a subtitle hint to animism, destruction, death, ancient rituals, and mythological entities. The symbols, both hidden and obvious, connects to the lyrics of the song and calls to the long-forgotten power that hides in the dark, waiting to be awakened."

(source: Earsplit PR)