Interviews About Albums: WEAK & MORTAL - The Darkest Places On The Earth (2026)
In this new interview, we sat down with the Polish Progressive Death Metal band WEAK & MORTAL to ask questions about their album, "The Darkest Places On The Earth".
1. What can you say about this new EP/CD?
First of all, I’d like to say hello to everyone who found the time to read this interview.
Coming back to your question, the EP “The Darkest Places on Earth” is our debut release. However, that doesn’t mean we are new to the scene. We’ve been around for over thirty years, but after our previous band, Cortege, came to an end, we — myself and the drummer, Kamil — decided to start something new. And that’s how WEAK AND MORTAL came into being.
What you can hear on “The Darkest Places on Earth” is the result of six months of work. As for the content, there are four songs which, at least in our opinion, show the direction we would like to follow in the future. It’s slightly different from what we did in Cortege — you could say it’s more experimental, yet still brutal and not so easy to classify.
We’d like to develop this concept further on our next release, which will hopefully be a full-length album. If there are no serious obstacles, we plan to record it at the beginning of 2027.
2. What is the meaning of the EP/CD name?
Well, we were looking for the right name for the EP, and it’s not an easy task. We wanted something catchy, but still dark — and believe me, it took months.
At some point, I turned to the Bible and came across a psalm with the verse: “Have respect unto the covenant: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.” As you can imagine, my eyes fell on the fragment “the dark places of the earth.” I sent it to Kamil, and he liked it right away.
Unfortunately, it later turned out that someone had already used that title for their album. Still, we were determined to keep it, so we decided to change “dark” to “darkest” — and that’s the whole story.
As for the meaning, it’s really up to the listener. We do have our own concept behind it, but we’d rather hear how others interpret it.
3. Which one is the composer of the CD/EP?
We are both responsible for the compositions. There are no situations where one of us brings in a fully finished song from start to finish. We’re open to ideas, and the weirder they are, the better.
Maybe you can’t hear our full potential on this release yet — but you will.
The songs on our debut actually started out as very different compositions. For example, “Human-Infested,” which was the first song we created, sounded very much like Slayer during our first rehearsal. Now, that influence is much less obvious, although it’s still there — it’s in our genes.
What’s more, the songs we brought into the studio didn’t remain the same. While working there with the producer, we made further changes, so the final versions ended up quite different from the originals.
4. If you had to pick one song, which one would you pick?
Come on, you know that’s impossible. We started a new band in our fifties, and now you’re asking me, quite soullessly, to pick just one? No way.
But I can say a few words about each track, and maybe someone reading between the lines will figure out which one I secretly like the most.
So, here we go. “Human-Infested” is the first song we created for WEAK AND MORTAL. This is our experimental ground. As I mentioned before, you can hear what influenced us while we were working on it. That’s where we more or less decided what we wanted to do next.
Then there’s “Begging for Death,” which was released as our first single. Here you can hear that our music is both heavy and catchy at the same time. We didn’t want to limit ourselves just because someone might say it’s not death metal, or not thrash, or not industrial. In fact, we never really decided what kind of music we wanted to make — we just followed our instincts.
The third track is “Blood Communion.” I’d describe it as controlled madness. It feels like being thrown into a sonic hurricane, with a brief moment of calm just to convince you everything is fine… and then you get hit again. I think this is the song where we really started to feel we were getting somewhere.
And finally, “The Bad Source.” It all started with a riff I’m extremely proud of. It’s the slowest track on the EP, but it shows that we can create a strong atmosphere as well. Originally, it was meant to be even longer, but over time, we realised that shortening it made more sense. I’m glad we did — now it feels like a monolith, exactly as long as it needs to be to have the right impact on the listener. At least, that’s how we see it.
So, any good interpreters out there? Which one do you think is my favourite after all?
5. Is there a special message in this EP/CD? If there is what it is?
I guess the only message is that there is a band called WEAK AND MORTAL. We didn’t really have much time to treat the material as a kind of concept EP. The lyrics we used were originally meant for a new Cortege album, but they had to be altered because they didn’t fit the new music.
We had one or two conversations with Kamil about what it could be about, but we dropped the idea quite quickly. There was a lot of other work to do, and you have to remember there were only two of us handling everything, so there simply wasn’t time to write new lyrics.
That said, it doesn’t mean these are texts written just before entering the studio. I take lyric writing seriously, and I would never allow myself to write or sing gibberish just to fill space for vocals.
6. Are there some lyrics that you'd love to share?
As for the lyrics, in a nutshell, “Human-Infested” is quite straightforward. Sometimes you can come to the conclusion that what we, as people, do to the world is a form of madness. We often make things harder both for ourselves and for others, hence the title. I couldn’t agree more with Ricky Gervais when he says he’s not a fan of humanity.
Moving on to “Begging for Death,” which is about people who can believe anything and subordinate their lives to a person, an organisation, or an idea, no matter how absurd it is. I wonder how some of them feel when they realise they’ve been wasting their time chasing something that was never there.
Track number three, “Blood Communion,” describes someone whose world is falling apart. It shows a person who is afraid that everything is about to change. They understand that the old order was not perfect, and in some cases even harmful to others, but it was familiar to them. Because of that, they are willing to take extreme measures to preserve the status quo, even if it means taking lives.
Finally, “The Bad Source” is a song about how easily we forget. I know there are things we don’t want to remember, but unfortunately, we have to remember history, no matter how difficult or painful it is, in order not to repeat it, as George Santayana pointed out.
It seems to me that the only people who truly know history are those who use it for their own purposes, to turn one group of people against another, but that’s a topic for another story.
7. Which inspirations have been important for this album? Like musically or friends, family, someone you'd love to thank especially?
This EP is a result of our love for music and persistence. Last year, Cortege was disbanded, and there was a feeling that that might be the end. However, Kamil and I decided it was not the time to retire from making music, so we chose to take our chance against all odds as a duo.
We decided to take a different path from what we had been doing before, and more importantly, we had a lot of fun during that journey. You might not necessarily hear it in the music, as it remains extreme, and the lyrics are not optimistic.
At the beginning, it was just the two of our families who supported us, and no one else. We are more than grateful for that. Now, after a few months, more and more people are showing interest in what we do, and we would like to thank them as well.
I cannot say whether our music is good or bad, but what you hear on this release is honest and comes straight from our hearts. I know it may sound a little bit melodramatic, but I don’t really care — I’m at an age where I can say things like that.
8. Something to add?
Thank you for the interview; it was very interesting. I would like to say hello to everybody who has had a chance to hear our music. Please share your impressions on YouTube, even if you don’t like it — we are quite old, and we can handle criticism with great ease (and a pocket full of hankies).
Soon, thanks to ADG RECORDS from Germany, the CD will be released, so you’ll have a chance to get your own copy if you are old-school metalheads on the frontline who still collect CDs.
Of course, don’t hesitate to write to us or visit us on any of our channels. Take care.
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