Embrace of Souls have put out a live video for The Plague, from The Battle Of The Dead. Simone D'Addazio filmed and edited it, with Simone Fornasini on keyboards for the performance.
The song sits at a hinge in the record's story. The Battle Of The Dead is set on a medieval continent split into kingdoms, and the plague of the title is what infects people's souls and pushes the whole thing towards a war between the living and the dead. Choosing that chapter for the first live clip is choosing the moment the plot turns.
What the band do with it comes from two eras at once: the heavy and power metal of the eighties and nineties, and the symphonic and epic records of the early two thousands. The current line-up runs Giacomo Rossi's voice against Martina Mazzeo's operatic one, and the contrast is the sound rather than an ornament on it.
Alessio Garavello mixed and mastered the album at Rogue Studios in London, and Morby of Domine guests on The War.
Three Italian dates follow: a Rockshots Night on 24 October with Heavenfall, the Revolver Club in San Dona di Piave on 14 November, and Druso in Bergamo on 29 November.