Serpent
Biography
Serpent is a Stockholm-based act rooted in occult melodic Death Metal and founded in the year 2000 and draws influence from 1990’s Death Metal, symphonic Black Metal and Gothenburg melodic Death Metal. In the decade that followed they built a small underground reputation through their six well-received demo releases that overall earned praise across international metal magazines and infl uential metal music webzines. The band’s profile rose in Canada when an escape artist began featuring Serpent’s tracks in his stage shows, including a performance aired on Canadian television.
The band went on an unforeseen hiatus in the late 2000’s when the guitarist’s desire to explore other musical avenues took over. The remaining vocalist devoted all his time to film school studies, went deep into music video production and commercials and did work for a wide variety of fresh, upcoming Swedish artists. Among other things he shot two Grindhouse trailer music videos with Quentin Tarantino’s favourite Swedish actress Christina Lindberg who reprised her role as “Frigga” from the legendary Swedish movie “Thriller – They Call Her One Eye” these videos are featured on the Scandinavian Deluxe Edition of “Thriller – en grym fi lm”, the BluRay edition.
Serpent’s resurgence began in 2022 with the recruitment of renowned guitarist Kristian Niemann (Sorcerer, Demonoid, ex-Therion). His addition immediately set the creative wheels in motion and the first signs of life emerged in 2024; re-recorded and re-released versions of two older tracks “Cross of Hate” and “Beneath the Forest of the Dead”, each accompanied by official music videos, the latter starring Swedish actress Jessica Forsberg.
With the creative juices now flowing freely the band began writing and recording Serpent’s long-awaited full length debut album, “The Pit and the Pendulum”. Produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by Niemann the album packs a serious punch and is bound to make an impact on the metal scene. Musically the album resides somewhere in the vicinity of melodic death and Black Metal, and keen ears can pick out influences such as Children Of Bodom, Carcass, At The Gates, Cradle Of Filth and Arch Enemy.
Serpent’s lyrical universe is steeped in the occult, mysticism and the darker strands of medieval history, exploring historical events, rituals and superstitions. While songs like “Serpent Rising” and “Necromancer” are purely fictional, other tracks are based on actual occurrences of our sordid past. “The Pit and the Pendulum” evokes the grim machinery of the Spanish Inquisition, “Der Hexenjäger” turns to the sinister career of Matthew Hopkins, England’s notorious Witchfinder General, while “Magna Mortalitas” summons the desolation of the Black Death, that vast catastrophe which transformed medieval Europe.
Niemann’s colleague in Sorcerer, vocalist Anders Engberg, lends his awesome tenor to the track Necromancer, and Swedish up-and-coming soprano sensation Frida Cewrien-Sollerhag elevates Season Of The Witch to the stratosphere with a stunning vocal performance. The beautiful album cover is created by Hungarian master artist Gyula Havancsák (Powerwolf, Accept, Kreator) and perfectly captures the spirit of the music and the lyrical themes.
After production wrapped the band started shopping the album around to labels and within days had a handful ofserious offers. In the end the band decided to go with legendary dutch label Hammerheart Records whose track record when it comes to releasing high quality metal is second to none.