Serpent - Possessed By Night

One thing about NWOBHM is that for the most part these bands weren’t signed to large labels and took the punk DIY ethic and released singles and sometimes albums under their own steam. They didn’t have much money, studios were expensive as for the most part home recording was just a dream, so these recordings were often raw and fairly poorly produced. As the bands were picked up by labels the sound became better, but some still strive for how it used to be, and that is the case with Serpent. I was amazed when I saw that this was a new band, as I was convinced that it was something from 1979 that had passed me by, but not in a good way. If this had been released 35 years ago by some starving students then one could understand where it was coming from, perhaps, but in 2014 there is just no excuse for releasing something like this. The production is lacking, at best, the vocals just aren’t very good at all and the songs are incredibly basic. I understand that this was the work of just two guys, but Darkthrone they aren’t. It’s the sort of metal that gives the whole genre a bad name and it is not something to which I can ever see myself returning to.