Carnal Desecration release Ancient Malediction on Thursday, four years after Sacrificial Death. Thrash Records are putting it out on compact disc in a run of three hundred copies.
Three hundred is the number to look at. A Belgian band eight years into a career, on a small label, pressing a limited CD rather than vinyl is making a calculation about exactly how many people will want the physical object, and getting it close enough that nobody is left with a garage full of them.
Nine songs, and the shape of the record is visible from the running times alone. "Apophis" lasts a minute and twenty seconds and sits fifth, which in old school death metal is usually where the instrumental goes. Around it the songs run from three minutes to the six of "Bones Beneath the Chapel", the longest thing here.
The band have been a quartet out of Antwerp since 2018 and have kept the same unhurried pace throughout: an EP, then an album two years later, then four years to this one. They play the black and death metal that Belgium has been quietly good at for thirty years without ever making a scene of it.