Season of the Dead --- Necrophagia --- 1987 (New Renaissance)
Suggested by mythsofmetal
It's the kind of name you really associate more with black metal than death metal, and the undercurrents in it are a little disturbing, however I'm going to trust mythsofmetal in that he usually recommends me music that he knows I'll like, or that at least there's a chance I'll like. So let's see what this is like then. It's the debut album from Necrophagia, and it opens on the deceptively-gentle “Forbidden pleasure”, with a nice soft guitar which sounds acoustic, even a little progressive, then about two minutes in a sort of growling, echoey sound which could be percussion or could be the dark feedback of a heavier guitar takes over, an altogether more ominous tone takes the piece as moaning, chanting voices surface from the depths, then a rolling drum and guitar combination punch in, the song speeding up but still pretty palatable to me.
I like the way this song is structured; they really take time to build it up in layers and it's quite impressive once it gets going. “Bleeding torment” though is fast from the outset, a bit more basic though. Wait a sec though: in the second minute it rolls into a kind of dark doomish tone, with a snarly much slower guitar and then “Insane for blood” is pretty much standard death metal with a growly vocal. Bit boring. At least it's a short song, just over three minutes. Even shorter is “Reincarnation”, at only two and a half minutes, but the boredom is setting in now. Not seeing much of the innovation I saw in the first two tracks and it's descended into death-metal-by-numbers at this point. Which is odd, if you believe Metal Archives, who tell me that Necrophagia were one of “the first death metal bands ever”. I find that hard to conceive: they got together in 1983, and surely there were death metal bands in existence before then?
Anyway, we're now onto a longer song, and at five minutes and change hopefully “Ancient slumber” will have something different to offer, before I take its advice and nod off! It's a dark, atmospheric opening at any rate, with what sounds like bells but not those dark, doomy, gloom-laden bells like from Black Sabbath or any other doom metal band. There's a snarled chant and then a plodding, crunching guitar leading the music in, with funereal drumming, then it picks up speed as the band launch into it. The vocal here is basically spoken, or growled, but there's no real attempt at singing. Oh, it's over now. Didn't really get much from that. There's a good buildup to “Mental decay”, with a sharp guitar taking the riff over and it rocks well, then “Abomination” is fast and aggressive from the beginning.
Sadly though the main impression I'm getting from this album is boredom. Much of it sounds too much the same, and I can't really pick out (other than the first two) any tracks that really say anything to me or make any sort of an impact; it's all just passing me by. “Terminal vision” is slower with a nice bassline, and some at last interesting guitar riffs, though it does fall back on that somewhat overused blistering guitar line and the spoken vocal. Yawn. Can't they do anything different? I guess not, as “Painful discharge” follows the same tired pattern, even if there is some good guitar work right at the end, but at least we're at the end now with the longest track on the abum, almost seven minutes as “Beyond and back” goes for the throat. Again. Just waiting for this to end now. Okay, they do some good work with instrumental breaks here, making the most of the length of the song and the dearth of vocals to at least end on a strong note. Good use of chanting and sound effects like rain and thunder. Too little though, I fear, too late.
TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS
1. Season of the dead
2. Forbidden pleasure
3. Bleeding torment
4. Insane for blood
5. Reincarnation
6. Ancient slumber
7. Mental decay
8. Abomination
9. Terminal vision
10. Painful discharge
11. Beyond and back
There was very little about this album that interested me. I found it quite generic, bereft of ideas and just really tedious to listen to. I know myths said it is an important album in death metal, and maybe it is, but that doesn't necessarily make it a good one, at least in my eyes. Myths had said I should also listen to another of their albums, but I'm not going to do that, for two reasons: one, I never accept any more than one album from one artiste for the same section, and two, I was so mind-numbingly bored by this I certainly do not want to experience any more of Necrophagia's music.