The Return of the Black Death
| The Return of the Black Death | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||
| Studio album by Antestor | ||||
| Released | September 14, 1998 | |||
| Recorded | February 1997 at Studio 5 in Oslo, Norway | |||
| Genre | Unblack metal | |||
| Length | 57:13 | |||
| Label | Cacophonous | |||
| Producer | Antestor | |||
| Antestor chronology | ||||
|
||||
| Original cover art | ||||
Kongsblod demo cover. The artwork is taken from Birkebeinerne, a painting by Knud Bergslien.
|
||||
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Kerrang! |   |
| Terrorizer | |
| The Whipping Post |  |
The Return of the Black Death is the second recorded and first released studio album by the Norwegian unblack metal band Antestor, released on September 14, 1998. It is the band's only release on the British Cacophonous Records label. This album's working title was Kongsblod. Antestor recorded another album, Martyrium, prior to The Return of the Black Death, in 1994, and while bootleg versions of the recording circulated, this album did not see official release until 2000.
In February 1997, Antestor recorded a promo-CD titled Kongsblod at Studio 5, Oslo. The recording and mixing process took approximately 90 hours. At the time their line up consisted of guitarist/keyboardist Lars Stokstad (Vemod), vocalist/lyricist Kjetil Molnes (Martyr), bass player Vegard Undal and drummer Svein Sander (Armoth). The band sent Kongsblod to record labels in hopes of getting finances to record and mix at a better quality studio. The cover of the demo contains a famous Norwegian painting of skiing Vikings (Birkebeinerne, by Knud Bergslien). One of the biggest exclusively black metal focused British labels, Cacophonous Records, became interested in the band, and a record deal was signed with Antestor. However, Cacophonous simply released Kongsblod after changing the cover to a painting by the American fantasy artist Joe Petagno, and the name was changed to The Return of the Black Death. The album was released on September 14, 1998.
Afterwards, the incident has caused some debates because it is rare that a Christian black metal band gets signed to a secular label. Previously only Horde's release of Hellig Usvart in 1994 on Nuclear Blast is a similar known case. In December 1998, the drummer Armoth said in an interview with the Art for the Ears webzine that they sent the CD and a short biography for Cacophonous Records and that Cacophonous Records just wanted to sign Antestor because of the music, which was exactly what the band wanted to do. Some time later, in a 2000 interview with the Finnish The Christian Underground Zine issue 4, the fanzine's interviewer asked Antestor: "However, you had a record deal with Cacophonous Records (ex-Cradle of Filth, Bal-Sagoth). What kind of experiences did you get from that?" The band replied: "Pretty bad, actually. I can not say they did anything else than released the album. No money, no royalties, nothing." The interviewer also asked: "Did the record company set any demands concerning your image?" Antestor replied: "Nothing like that. They just said that it is not recommendable for us to announce exactly everywhere that we are a Christian band, and they censored the words 'Lord' and 'Jesus' from our lyrics. We ourselves removed a few texts because we did not want to provoke unnecessarily."
...
Wikipedia