1648 is a one-person project from Liverpool and the year in which the Second Civil War broke out, ruled by the English elite Brittain.
The war was, of course, part of a broader process of friction at the levels of government, between the monarchists and the power of Parliament. Add the issue of Catholicism and Protestantism and the Scots’ desire for independence, and we have a truly violent and in a horrific way interesting period, with many fascinating threads concerning the relationship between power and resistance, on this EP we’ll look at one particular theme – the execution of King James I.
The band’s previous release was a full album (Lying Among the Despites Ones of the Earth, 2022), more than 40 minutes of excellent black metal blending rawness and atmospheric aesthetics. The result is full of disturbing and unsettling sounds used as background for a hideous tale. Here, in these 17 minutes, we start in marshes, or perhaps a stream in a cave, where storms can be heard in the distance, and you can literally hear it – a sample is used here. Then slowly the music develops pompously but in a gloomy-funeral sense, with a very motoric rhythm section and riffs of different tempos, which at one time create an atmosphere of horror, to later lead the whole story to a climax at a furious pace.
Like King James, who played an almost operetta-like role that day -he was saying goodbye to his children then getting ready all morning in elegant black clothes, only to be led later in an equally parade- like procession to the place of execution, where he had just uttered the title words: “would go from a corruptible crown to an incorruptible crown”. The music is complemented by damning vocals that lament like an ancient wraith. The composition is complete, as befits a genuine tale, we have an intro after which the music unfolds, clearly measuring the subsequent events until the end of the story and an outro back on those sampled sounds of borderland marshes.
King James was convicted of being a tyrant and the sentence was carried out with an axe.
⚔️1648 :⚔️
BC: https://1648.bandcamp.com/releases
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