By: Daniel Jackson
Album Type:
Full Length
Date Released:
23/02/2018
Label:
Century Media Records
‘Mark
of the Necrogram’ is as great as any album Necrophobic has ever released. The
band is beaming with new creative life; driven by excellent performances all
around and a vocalist that fits his band even better the second time around.
‘Mark of the Necrogram’ CD//DD//LP track listing:
1. Mark of the Necrogram
2. Odium Caecum
3. Tsar Bomba
4. Lamashtu
5. Sacrosanct
6. Pesta
7. Requiem for a Dying Sun
8. Crown of Horns
9. From the Great Above to the Great
Below
10. Undergången
The Review:
Some twenty-five years after the
release of their debut album, Necrophobic aren’t just
still alive and kicking, they’re releasing some of the best music of their
career. The band hasn’t ever released anything that wasn’t at least good, and
often times they’ve been great. That makes for a rare level of consistency for
any band, regardless of genre. That’s not to say the band themselves haven’t
had their ups and downs over the years.
The band’s longtime vocalist and
early bassist Tobias Sidegård was rightly fired from the band following his
conviction for domestic abuse in 2013. ‘Mark
of the Necrogram’ is the band’s first full length album without Sidegård,
and interestingly, the band has opted to bring back Anders Strokirk, who was
the vocalist on the band’s debut album, ‘The
Nocturnal Silence’. It’s especially interesting since this doesn’t seem to
indicate a return to their early, pure death metal roots.
In fact, the band are largely
continuing in the same mixed black and death metal direction they’ve been
travelling for more than 20 years. ‘Mark
of the Necrogram’ continues in the similar vein to 2013’s ‘Womb of Lilithu’, however the songs on
this album are much better written and arranged. That probably owes to a
heavier reliance on melody, though they balance the scales between that melody
and darker material superbly. Strokirk’s work in Blackshine
had seen him using a much more commercial, quasi-melodic vocal style, but he
has pivoted back into extreme vocals exceedingly well.
Perhaps best exemplifying that
aforementioned balance between melody and darkness is “Requiem for a Dying Sun”, which may be Necrophobic
most anthemic song ever. Its deliberate, stomping tempo and hook-crazy guitar
work make it an early candidate to be one of the year’s best extreme metal
songs. The song, by all rights, should be for Necrophobic
what “Tyrants” was for Immortal. It’s so good that I’m sort of baffled that it
wasn’t chosen as the advance single
for the album.
What it boils down to is this: when
a band has a long, high-caliber career like Necrophobic
does, opinions on where albums rank are going to vary quite a bit. I know
people that are huge proponents of several different albums in the band’s
discography. It’s also very difficult to overcome the reverence that nostalgia
lends those first two albums. It’s with that in mind that I would say ‘Mark of the Necrogram’ is as great as
any album Necrophobic has ever released. At the very
least, it’s their best since “Darkside”.
The band is beaming with new creative life; driven by excellent performances
all around and a vocalist that fits his band even better the second time
around. Get this immediately.
Band info: Official ||Facebook
