Serpent formed in Stockholm in 2000 and are releasing their first album on 13 November. The new song from it, Season of the Witch, has a soprano on it, Frida Cewrien-Sollerhag.
Twenty six years between forming and a debut is not the usual kind of delay. The band put out six demos in their first decade and then stopped. What restarted it was Kristian Niemann joining in 2022, the guitarist from Sorcerer and Demonoid who played with Therion before either. He also produced, engineered, mixed and mastered The Pit and the Pendulum.
The album is built on documented persecution rather than invented horror, which is a narrower seam than occult metal usually works. The title track takes Edgar Allan Poe's Spanish Inquisition, Der Hexenjäger is about the English witchfinder Matthew Hopkins, Salem 1692 is about the trials, and the closing Magna Mortalitas takes the Black Death.
Anders Engberg of Sorcerer sings on Necromancer, and Gyula Havancsák did the cover.
Hammerheart Records has it on CD, vinyl and digital. Season of the Witch is the third song out, after the title track and Lightbringer.