Infected Martyr (EP)

**Followed by** | *Parasitic Cruelty* (3851 A.A.)

***Infected Martyr*** is an eponymous debut EP from Finnish heavy metal band Infected Martyr. It was independently released and recorded by the band in the garage of Päiviö Selänne, the band's lead vocalist, for $300 over the course of two months.

The extended play was originally released digitally on October 22, 3848 A.A. on the band's Patreon account as the band's highest pledge tier of $20. Previously, the band had teased its release for three months with artwork, samples, demos, and instrumentals on their Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts.

*Infected Martyer* would later be re-recorded by the band and re-released under the title *Our Fragile Echo* for free on the band's various social media accounts as subscriber-exclusive content to thank their earliest fans and to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the band's founding.

## Artistry

### Style

*Infected Martyr* is noted among the band's fans for its raw sound featuring no autotune and much more extreme, brutal sound featuring no clean vocals. On the extended play, the band makes heavy use of screaming and death growls, lengthy, fast-paced guitar solos inspired by thrash metal and speed metal, and heavy, intense breakdowns inspired by hardcore punk and grindcore.

It was self-described by the band as old school death metal and pagancore (a term that the band's members coined themselves to describe their combination of symphonic black metal and pagan metal with influences from hardcore punk).

However, most critics' views differed, with them describing the EP as symphonic black metal, melodic death metal, doom metal, pagan metal, and death metal. They agreed with the band, however, by noting the heavy influence from hardcore punk, screamo, thrashcore, thrash metal, speed metal, grindcore, and powerviolence featured in their style.

### Lyrics

The extended play revolves around themes such as the meaninglessness of life, Lovecraftian horror, nature, mythology, indigenous suffering, depression, fear, grief, dread, death, anger, global catastrophe, destruction and rebirth, concern over the destruction of the environment, ancient Mesopotamian culture, war, and indigenous Finnish religion.

The topic of suicide is also present on the EP, as Päiviö later stated that the song "His Last Heartbeat (Why My Father Wished to Die)" is about her father, who took his own life after a long struggle with depression when she was only ten years old. She wrote the song when she was thirteen years old, three years prior to the formation of the band, to "vent all my anger, all this fucking hatred, and grief, because nobody gave enough of a shit to listen to me, the one they dubbed 'emo punk-ass bitch' who nobody would eat with at lunch. I had next to no friends growing up and my mother stopped caring after Dad died, so all I had was my music and my few friends who would later form Infected Martyr with me."

She explained that the song is extremely personal to her, even after nearly two decades have passed since she originally wrote it, saying "I emotionally hate the song now, but it's very personal to me and I'll never forget that all the rage and my brutal screaming for helping saved my life... I owe my life to the song and my band because nobody else was ever there for me after I lost my dad. People wonder why I wrote so much about death back then, well, I ask you this: 'Wouldn't you be angry and grieve if you found your own dad's fucking corpse on the couch after he overdosed?' If not, then fuck you and leave me alone, because you have no heart. No three-year-old needs to experience that. This song is like my own personal "Suicide Season" or "Given Up", and it still helps me to this date, so if you don't like it, then you can suck my fucking dick because I do not give a single, solitarily fucking shit what people like you think about *my* struggles."

### Influences

Among musical artists that the band cited as influencing the sound of the EP is a variety of extreme metal bands, including Venom, Cannibal Corpse, In Flames, Slayer, Death, and Tiamat. They also cited early heavy metal bands such as Black Sabbath, Motörhead, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, Metallica, Diamond Head, Megadeth, and Anthrax, as well as Slipknot.

When citing specific albums or songs as influences, Bring Me The Horizon's *Count Your Blessings*, Ice Nine Kills' *The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood*, and Queen's "Stone Cold Crazy" are frequently mentioned by the band.

Culturally, the band cited Ancient Mesopotamian religion, the works of H. P. Lovecraft, and indigenous Finnish religion as influencing the style, sound, and lyricism of some of the extended play.

### Vocals

Being heavily laced with influences from various hardcore and extreme metal styles, the EP features heavy use of death growls (from death metal), shrieking and snarling (from black metal), screaming (from thrash metal and hardcore punk), and shouting (from hardcore punk). Clean vocals are entirely non-existent, while spoken word voiceovers are occasionally used.

## Personnel

* Päiviö Selänne - screamed vocals, death growls, bass, piano (2), production, mixing, programming, composer, art direction, songwriter
* Sini Nykänen - death growls, voiceover (4-6), lead guitar, acoustic guitar (2, 4-5), violin (4-6), paintings, creative direction, songwriter
* Kullervo Venäläinen - rhythm guitar, cello (4-6), production, editing, songwriter, backing vocals
* Heljä Ketola - flute (4-6), trumpet (4-5), songwriter, backing vocals
* Hellä Karttunen - drums, percussion, songwriter