The Moshville Times - Band of the Day: Sercati

Melodic black metal today, this time from Belgium, and a triumvirate (or a … erm.. quadriumvirate – the details I have are a little shaky) called Sercati. They’re just about to release their second full album, so a good time for some back-story.

Sercati formed in 2009 as a three-piece with a drum machine. A self-titles demo was released within a year, followed by another called The Night Stalker. In 2011 they released their first full-length album, Tales of the Fallen. For this, they recruited a “real” drummer and disposed of the electronic thump-machine.

Tales of the Fallen was a concept piece, telling the story of a fallen angel. Their forthcoming album, The Rise of the Nightstalker continues the tale. Further details and clarifications can be read in book form, as Sercati’s bassist/vocalist Steve Fabry penned them as a novella. Unfortunately (for mono-linguists like me), it’s only available in French. Similarly, further detail is available explaining the lyrics to this second album.

In an interesting twist, Steve has formed a side-project to tell the story of another character from the original tale and to extend the “universe” in which it takes place. So, more of a spin-off than a side-project!

The music is “melodic death” taking both terms to extreme. Beautiful acoustic guitar solos and keyboards battle with harsh lyrics and heavy beats in a contrasting mix of styles. There is a bit of spoken word here and there to either explain the story or add atmosphere. In fact, opening track “Rememberance” (sic) is instrumental save for narration rather than lyrics.

It’s a nice take on the genre and something different. Musically, it’s very adept and having a story to go along with things makes it more interesting. The addition of a book reminds me of Diabolical’s Neogenesis.

The video below is from the first full album as I can’t find anything from the new one to embed. It’s still worth a listen and the style’s not changed a lot.