Behind The Artworks: Forged In Black - Descent Of The Serpent (2019)

"We wanted to have an album cover that related to lyrical themes/song titles on the album to really tie it all in for a complete package and experience. We didn’t want the cover over fussy and confused with too many themes, so we decided to narrow it down to 2 only.

The main theme of the cover is the title track “Descent Of The Serpent” depicted here as a stone Serpent well, mouth wide open with fangs primed ready to strike. Within in the vacuous vortex of the Serpent’s well are the afflicted three protagonists from the opening track of the album “Seek No Evil”. Based around the concept of “Speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil” each has their afflicted parts sewn shut. 

A biro was obtained in a Hells angels bar after a gig one night and a very rough sketch was drawn of what we thought the image could look like. 

After reviewing our artwork with sober eyes, we realised we desperately required the services of someone with coloured pens, talent and the ability to work their magic on our very basic idea. 

We looked around and checked out other album covers and the artists behind them, and none stood out to us more than the work of Dan Goldsworthy – His previous works include Hell – “Human Remains” and “Curse & Chapter”, Accept – “Blind Rage” and “Starlingrad”, Sylosis and many more. 

Our management reached out to him and we were over the moon when he agreed to design the cover and album artwork for us. We cannot thank him enough for the final product he produced based on our limited biro drawing. Please do check out the rest of his amazing work and we hope you enjoy our artwork and the music it encases.”