Hailing from East Anglia, The Infernal Sea have made good use of the emptiness of the surrounding landscape to infuse their music with a similar sense of bleakness to that which infused the early works of My Dying Bride, albeit filtered through a black metal lens. Following on from 2016’s The Great Mortality, which focused on the Black Death, Negotium Crucis once more returns to the Middle Ages, this time to explore the darkness that lay at the heart of the Crusades. Detailing the primal brutality of organised religion in full flight via the Knights Templar, the album pairs its visceral subject matter with a none-more-brutal take on unpolished black metal, with just a hint of black ‘n’ roll atmosphere emerging to leaven the dour atmosphere.
Admirably raw, but not impenetrably so, Destruction Of Shum dispenses with any notions of subtlety, as the band unleash hyper-speed riffing and acid-etched vocals with furious abandon. That’s not to say that it’s a one-note attack, however, and an abrupt tempo shift sees an unexpected groove emerge from the frantic thrash ’n’ burn. As album openers go, it’s a sinus cleansing dose of ferocious black metal, whilst a melodic final third brings the more ruminative approach of Winterfylleth to mind. Ending acapella, Destruction Of Shum gives way to the Celtic-Frost-Meets-Emperor churn of Befallen Order. A potent, toxic blast of icy black metal, it suggests that we’re for a familiar, if engaging ride; only for the band to suddenly shift gear, throwing in a mid-tempo groove and a solo beamed in from a classic rock album. Such details add weight to the music and imply a sense of ambition that belies the straight-ahead approach with which the track opens. Changing tack, the brutally slow God Wills It has a creeping doom feel that slowly evolves over the track’s five-and-a-half-minute run time to become an album highlight. It segues effectively into the lighter Field Of The Burned. Something of a mid-album epic, it opens with a more typically black metal approach, although a melodic interlude sees the band bending the music to their will as it progresses. Almost hypnotic by the conclusion, it takes the rampant madness of Devoid Of Fear to shake the listener from their reverie and this it does with frightening proficiency, the band unleashing a perfect storm of unholy riffs designed to catch you wholly off-guard.
Despite being one of the album’s simpler tracks, there’s something particularly unpleasant lurking beneath the grinding, Satyricon-esque riffs of Negotium Crucis that serves to make it another standout track. Caught between black metal and the unhinged sonic assault of napalm Death, it gets under the skin and stays there. Next up, the droning post-rock introduction to Unholy Crusade suggests a broader range of influences are at work than might first be suspected, although it soon devolves into a taut, black metal groove. The album concludes with the lengthy Rex Mundi, the angular riffing of which proving to be a gateway to a darker, more hypnotic piece of music, with a stately grandeur that befits its place as the album’s finale. It also paves the way for bonus track, Into The Unknown. Similarly paced ( it’s actually a re-recording from 2013’s The Crypt Sessions), it says much of the band’s initial clarity of vision that a track written seven years in the past feels entirely at home on this record.
Given the fascinating nature of the subject matter, it is a shame that this particular style of music serves to render the lyrics unrecognisable, which leaves the atmospheric shifts within the music largely responsible for conveying a sense of the narrative. This it does with considerable aplomb. Pieces drift evocatively, a sense of atmosphere building between the ferocious riffs and harsh vocals, and although the band rarely step into unfamiliar territory, they are conversant enough with their influences to be able to bend them effectively to their purpose. A darkly enthralling album, then, Negotium Crucis sees The Infernal Sea continuing to explore the breadth of their influences, carving out their own identity in the process. Well worth checking out. 8/10
