Mental Cruelty have released Echoes of a Forlorn Land today through Century Media, and one of its eleven songs is a tribute hidden in plain sight.
"Cry Of Batariel" gives the initials away. "We've written our tribute to one of our all time favourite bands: Children Of Bodom, who were also a major influence on our new record," Lukas Nicolai said. "The song is fast, vicious, and comes with a little twist of humor."
The humour is in the lyric. Batariel, thrown out of heaven, decides to spend the time with the other outcasts instead of mourning, which is roughly the attitude of the band Nicolai is saluting.
The rest of the record goes to Norse myth, and the band's blackened deathcore now carries melodic death metal, Nordic folk and orchestration on top of it. Two songs went out in the last week before release, and Jens Bogren produced, mixed and mastered the whole thing.