Band Interview: The Infernal Sea

Games, Brrraaains & A Head-Banging Life had the chance to chat to British black metal band, The Infernal Sea. Their new album ‘Negotium Crucis’ is released on 18th September through Apocalyptic Witchcraft. What follows is a transcript of some of the talking points covered in the interview. You can listen to the full thing via Soundcloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

Has all the focus been on the release of the new album during a time when the pandemic has limited what bands can do?

Definitely. It’s full steam ahead with it, which is great. This album has been a long time coming. So for it to finally drop and during a pandemic could be ironic, in that our previous album was about a pandemic! It’s good timing, in a way, for us, because everybody is at home, you know, so everybody’s focused on the Internet, which is great. Would it have been a bit different if everybody was out and about? It’s hard to tell, isn’t it?

Absolutely. The machine never really stops churning regardless. Do you enjoy this kind of long, drawn out build that comes with the territory of being in a modern band?

I think so. I think it is exciting. I come from a sort of old school background, so for me, the whole build up, you know, when you used to buy the magazines and you’d see all the articles and it would be like an advert, you know, from a certain label saying that so-and-so album’s coming out in several months and you were excited because you didn’t have access to it, so therefore you would be ready.

Now, obviously, it’s a bit different because everything is at our disposal. We can we can go online and we can find something, we can listen to it for 30 seconds. We can move on to the next thing. So it’s good to kind of keep that momentum and excitement going. So for us, yeah, I think it’s great and I’m hoping people enjoy it. You know, we drip feed them new songs and new information and snippets from the album. So hopefully it’s exciting for them.

Was there a particular theme or idea that you found yourselves focused on during the writing of the album?

So with this album, we lyrically return back to the Middle Ages again. It’s a subject that I’m quite interested in. Although it’s kind of still focused on the sadistic nature of mankind, which seems to be an overall theme in all of our albums. This time we’re talking about the Knights Templar and the Holy Crusades, looking at how the church influenced them to basically commit acts of depravity, corruption, genocide and anti-Semitism and just real crazy shit that was all under the banner of Christianity.

When it comes to writing the lyrics, do you sort of sit down and pour through books for ideas, or is it just something that captures the imagination and you think “OK, there’s the spark, let me follow that”?

There’s a bit of everything. I do research online but it has like a bit of poetic license to it. It’s going to be as historically correct as possible with a little bit of a change. It’s more that I just get an idea in her head that I’ll be like, okay, you know, let’s do the Knights Templar. And obviously, because it’s such a broad subject, you can’t cover that on eight songs.

So it’s just picking out key moments during those crusades and the reign of the Templars and just singing about them and hoping that people will take from this and, you know, research it themselves and find out more about that period.

Is it massively important to you that people pick up the elements that you’re trying to explain?

Definitely. Definitely. Because, you know, as I said, so much horrible stuff happened. I mean, there’s accounts where the Knights Templar seized castles and then they would herd thousands of people together and just burn them. All because they didn’t follow Christianity and that’s insane. I feel that. As we progress through human nature, we need to learn from these past mistakes and, you know, a lot of that’s not being taught in schools and, I think it needs to be. Like I said, these are horrible, horrible acts that were committed.

So if it gives somebody the interest to go out and research that, then brilliant. They’ll find even more nasty stuff hiding underneath.

A combination of just listening to great black metal music and getting an education at the same time.

Exactly. And again, it’s just interesting. It’s not just the UK, but there’s rich history here. There’s so much to sing about and so much to learn from every country. Every country has its history. So, yeah, I just think more bands should do. It’s just interesting.

So it’s been five years since the last album, The Great Mortality. Three years since Agents of Satan. What’s different in your opinion, about The Infernal Sea in 2020?

We have we’ve progressed a lot since The Great Mortality days, we’ve learned quite a lot. We’ve become quite a noticeable force on the live circuit and I feel that we’ve just progressed and matured musically. You know, it has taken us a while.

I just think it (the new album) just shows a new side of us that we’re here to stay. We’re not going anywhere. This is our 10th year together and actually, we were going to celebrate 10 years as a band, but obviously Covid screwed that.

How concerned are you about the future of the kind of metal underground scene in the U.K.?

There’s a big concern. If you lose the grassroot venues, then you’re screwed because they’re the only venues that are really giving smaller bands a chance. A band like us are probably going to struggle to play, say, for example, the London Forum. You know, it’s a big step up. So we need grassroot venues and all the venues that are slightly mid-tier, if they disappear, then how are bands going to progress? If there is no middle tier, there’s no progression.

In your opinion, what do you think can be done to help?

I think people just need to support them, so if the venues are doing things like, for example, there’s a venue called the Crawford Arms in Milton Keynes and they’re trying to get people in to take away drinks and stuff. If they’re doing, like fundraisers, then support them, that’s the only way they’re going to survive.

Also when these venues open, go don’t just sit home and be like, oh, no, I’m not going to go now, because that’s going to cripple them. As soon as they open if nobody starts attending these venues, that’ll be the death of them. So I think everybody just needs to show their support as much as possible, because when they gone, you’ll soon be pinning for it.

What plans, if any, that you can talk about, do you have in the works over the next 12 months.?

So depending on the situation, we’ll do some touring in support of the album and just keep on that as much as possible. For 2021 we’ve been talking about some potential new releases, just something little. Not stop gap releases but just some fun little pieces. 2021 should have some interesting stuff for us I think.

Well I have to mention this because it’s our specific favourite festival. Bloodstock, were you have certainly made a name for yourselves. The New Blood stage in 2013 and the Sophie Lancaster Stage in 2017. That’s four years between those shows, which would make 2021 another four years. A main stage slot calling.

It would be absolutely incredible. What we need to do is rally the troops and get them to go to Bloodstock and tell them. Bloodstock is an amazing festival, they’ve really helped us jump from stage to stage. The reaction and response we had for on the Sophie stage was just incredible, one we’ll never forget. So, yeah, w’re forever indebted to bloodstock.

They’re doing it right. They support the underground, they know that the underground bands need a stepping stone, same as Damnation, same as Incineration. You know, they’re looking out for the UK bands.

The Infernal Tea. Please explain.

It’s just a bonkers idea that we came up with and we just thought, why the fuck not? Everyone does alcohol or coffee. We’re an English black metal band and England is notorious for tea. So we thought, let’s use this medieval theme that we have, to our advantage and create some medieval blends.

There are these ridiculous blends using all ingredients that were used in remedies during medieval times. It’s just cool and people love it. We thought we’d run with it and it paid off!

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