Cologne, Germany based blackened doom metal / hardcore band SERPENT EATER are putting out their venomous second full length album “Vanitas“ in two days via a trio of great DIY labels 7Degrees, Wooaargh, and Alerta Antifascista, and today we’re thrilled to give you its early full stream below! As the stomping, devilish opener kicks into gear, a tornado of metallic, sinister brutality and furious force tears its way through and raises the blood pressure. You’ve been warned.
SERPENT EATER know exactly who they are and what they are doing on ‘Vanitas’. Opening with a stomping black metal crusher of a riff overlaid with cackling screams and ripping double kicks, this is blackened crust at it’s most operatic and metallic. The production and performances here are supremely polished and well rehearsed, there isn’t so much as a squeak of feedback that feels out of place.
The band offered us extensive commentary about their work and this particular project “Vanitas”:
To be honest, life in Serpent Eater has never been easy.
We fight a lot. We had to replace members at crucial moments in the band‘s history since it was founded in 2012. We didn‘t have a consistent line-up two years in a row.
Luckily we now we have a great line-up; maybe the best we ever had. Hopefully it will last. Fingers crossed!
The songs on Vanitas are fueled by the frustration and anger of that time and being fed up with the fucked up world we live in.
They are less chaotic and playful than the songs on Hyena were. They are angrier and a lot more furious and malicious.Until then we had always recorded our records live, because we liked the dynamics it creates. We knew that with a lot of the very fast blasts and the long, more complex songs that wouldn‘t be possible or it would take a frustratingly long time to do so.
We decided for a different approach altogether, recording the instruments one after the other with a click. As a result Vanitas is as precise and tight as it can be.Soundwise we wanted to change something, too. We don‘t like the studio sound being too different from a band‘s live sound. We practically recorded all the instruments with exactly the equipment, that we play live. Except for solos and melodies we didn‘t add second tracks. So the sound of Vanitas is the sound of Serpent Eater live.
The last thing that was different from our last recording sessions is that we didn‘t have a tight schedule. We recorded on a couple of weekends in Andy Rosczyk‘s „Goblin Sound Studio“ in Cologne, whenever we had the time. That way we didn‘t have any pressure finishing the record in a certain time, which is a plus. But we didn‘t get in the recording flow that you get in, when you spend a couple of days in a studio, working the whole time. That‘s a minus.
We agreed on the title Vanitas. It means vanity, but also futility. It also means, we know Latin and are a bunch of prententious assholes.
Sound wise SERPENT EATER lean heavily on the black metal side, with rocking black’n’roll sections interspersed with huge sounding blasts and absolutely punishing double kick drums. Their riffs are certainly serpentine as well, meandering around and over the drums like the coils of a resting python, springing to life for moments of attack before coiling back in on themselves. Vocally they range from the head tilted back howling screams of black metal to almost guttural death growls, this is used almost instrumentally to add dynamics to their compositions. This is a professional and expertly performed and produced release that sees SERPENT EATER sounding like a true venue destroyer, certainly a band at the very top of their game and worth catching!
SERPENT EATER is: Pippo Colapinto , Sepp Litz, Gunnar Ronge, Stefan Otto, Dirk Weißenfels,
