Necronomicon the book of the dead! Well call me Ashley and throw me into a bookcase. Actually it appears that it is not evil deadites that are of concern here but a witch that we need to be wary of. As for the band themselves, they are not known by me and the Canadians appear to be releasing their first album in six years. The two that came before them seem to have a bit of an Egyptian mystical bent about them and I suspect that behind the rather awful artwork they had something in the way of a bit of Nile worship going on musically. Descriptions in reviews of these describe the group as death metal and today they are decrying themselves as blackened death and saying they should appeal to fans of Dimmu Borgir and Behemoth. Obviously Napalm records agrees to a certain extent having picked the group up from relative obscurity. Just in case you were in any doubt about this, the trio sport what many would describe as a smudge of badger paint on their press photos.
‘Into The Fire’ blazes (sorry) in with thundering triggered sounding drums, grating guitars and a really low rasping vocal sneer from singer Rob ‘The Witch’ (surely that should be warlock but there you go). I can instantly hear the death metal coursing through this and both Nile and Behemoth would not be a bad comparison. However the song decides rather than just playing it straight to go into a female orchestrated choral part sounding divine, demonic and blackened. This is an approach that crops up a couple of times on the album and is the only real distinguishing facet that stops them being just another formulaic death metal band, which is essentially what we have here. The devilish chorus leads into second number ‘The Awakening’ and to be fair everything romps along at a fair old pace and at 40 minutes the album does not outstay its welcome as it dashes out head cracking extremity instrumentally. It does sound to me like the vocals have been pushed to the front production wise and there is certainly no escaping them. Guitar solos suddenly come in and everything else goes quiet, it’s quite an interesting approach but the jury is out on just how effective it is.
Even though songs are sometimes not that fast and are often more mid-paced there is an undeniable heaviness about them that is enough to get me stomping feet and banging head as the drumming rolls on like an all conquering tank. ‘Necropolis’ does add a touch of baroque blackness with theatrical vocals urging into its depths and there is a fairly atmospheric instrumental ‘Lilith’ stopping this from being formulaic and one-dimensional. As for ‘Order Of The Moon’ with strange intonations echoing in the background it sounds like it’s straight out the sarcophagus of that aforementioned band.
So although this isn’t fantastically original or likely to set the world on fire, it’s a solid enough listen and enjoyable for what it is.
http://www.myspace.com/necronomiconmetal
