Epidemia Mortalis — When The Epidemic Arrived../Worst Afflicted Raptur
Up first is their second demo‘When The Epidemic Arrived’ from 2006/2007 & it offers up six tracks which includes your standard creepy black metal intros & outros around the four full tracks. The production is suitable low-fi & blacked punk like & each track buzzers with weaving, discordant & at time relatively complex yet grim guitar riffs that are by attack by often cymbal heavy & high in the mix drums; it’s all topped off with quite active black metal growls. Each track here sticks to being fairly mid-pace, though there are some sudden fast blast of faster blacked attacks here & there, as well as a few more sludgy goth atmospheric dips. On the whole all the tracks are rewarding if not that original blasts of evil black metal; that said the band do add their own distinctive out of focus sometime woozy blacked air to the proceedings.
Lastly we have their first demo ‘Worst Afflicted Rapture’ from 2004 which once more offers up another six tracks in all with an intro & outro track. The intro track here is quite effective & disorientating- it’s built around speed up & pitch shifting grim layers of effect sickly music box wonky pitter patter. Then we’re into the full length blacked metal tracks which seem a little faster & blackly strained in their tone than the more recent demo- yet you’d still mainly class them as mid-pace blacked metal. Also the vocals are a little more shrill & high pitched in their attack, as well as the riffs been seemingly more discordant & weaving in there attack. With at times the riffs almost sound like drunken, stumbling punked takes on Voivod at their more trashed & blacked. This time around instead of the drums the bass is the unnatural highest thing in the mix which nicely adds a grim discordant 80’s doomed feel of the tracks.
Another very worthy release from this fledgling cult Black metal label that was set-up by two respected underground noise-heads uk’s George Proctor(Mutant Ape, Karst & Murder Book) & Nicola Vinciguerra (Fecalove & Splinter vs. Stalin). Sure Epidemia Mortalis are far from original, but they do mange to weave their tracks with enough buzzing & discordant blacked atmosphere & twist’s’ turns to make this worthwhile