The death metal keepers Necrovorous (Greece) have been concocting their particular potion of primal preeminence amongst the gods and the mortals, within the dark alleys of the holy, the filthy and the insane, and they have been doing it for a long time, churning out demos, splits, EPs, an album and other such articles. They have been recording music for years and years, but things are getting even more interesting now with the band’s second full-length album, after more than ten years of confronting the mud and the swamp of the music business. The Greeks have found their way to Dark Descent Records, which if you think about it, seems like a perfect home for them. Necrovorous has one thing in mind: the creation of classic-style death metal. Fine, fine, fine, but who is Necrovorous and what do they want with you? Why does the death metal fanatic find themselves in the aim of Necrovorous? Let’s find out now. By the way, now you and all of your sick friends can gather around the chimney on a dark and stormy night, drink some hot apple cider and do a test listen of the new Necrovorous work called
Plains of Decay in its entirety because it’s available for full streaming at Bandcamp. The link is at the end of this interview with the wizards themselves: Necrovorous!
Your band did good work with your new album Plains of Decay! Now that the album is finished, how is life for Necrovorous in Greece? How is life in general for your metal band in the ancient and legendary city Athens?!
Athens has been cool for metal for years. We are in the middle of a metal renaissance right now, there was a great scene that produced tons of masterpieces back in the late eighties up to the mid nineties and right now we are going through a similar phase. Life for the Necrovorous chaps has always been simple and straight as nails, it’s mostly work, family, working out, music and flicks nowadays. As far as Plains of Decay is concerned, it seems that the album has created a quite positive buzz around the reviews keep on coming in and are mostly very positive. The cd is already out and we are waiting for the LP/MC versions. We are still very satisfied with what we managed to unearth with the new album.
Necrovorous is classic-style death metal! I am new to Necrovorous. When did the band actually begin and have you been active since the beginning? Who are the members of the band now and who is answering this interview? On Metal Archives it shows that you have recorded a lot of music!
It’s Kostas answering this interview and currently Necrovorous is consisting of Vaggelis: drums, Kostas: vocals and Marios: guitars/bass. The band was founded in 2005 by S***eater (Vaggelis) and Pig*****r (Perikles), their goal was to fill a gap they felt it existed in the scene. Back then slam death metal and hi-tech brutal death metal was the order of the day, there wasn’t any dark and brooding death metal left except for the well known bands like Dismember, so the guys decided to get their acts together and create a combo influenced by old grindcore and death metal. The early sound of the demo tapes was mostly a hybrid of AUTOPSY, IMPETIGO, MASTER/DEATHSTRIKE, REPULSION, DR.SHRINKER, PUNGENT STENCH with some punky stuff thrown in for the good measure. The “Crypt of the Unembalmed Cadavers” 7”ep from 2009 was definitely the major turning point for Necrovorous. At that particular EP everything fell into place and the then new line-up seemed to have the ability to create extremely dark yet energetic music with uncanny ease. We pretty much resumed the same course for the first full-length, for the split EP with ANATOMIA and ultimately for the second album “Plains of Decay” which we feel encompasses our sound in a very effective manner. Everything fell into place on Plains of Decay, the tracks are better, the performances tighter, the production is great for what we do and the atmosphere is very morbid and twisted.
I think that Plains of Decay has a good production! Where did you record the album? Do you record your own music in your own studio? How do you make the classic death metal production? The album feels good to the ear, and I can hear the instrumentation well.
Thanks! We used the best gear possible and we tracked in several places. The mixing/mastering was handled by Stamos Koliousis and took place at Nest studio in Norway where Stamos is currently located. There are so many different production styles that can be classified as “classic” death metal productions that we dig and are not necessarily “technically” proficient. We just wanted to keep the instrumentation spontaneous and the atmosphere grimy and somber without having to compromise the technical aspect, some old school fans tend to think that sloppy equals great but they keep on forgetting that the old school bands actually had their stuff together and knew what they were doing. In terms of sound engineering we didn’t want to brickwall the whole thing, we opted for as great tones as possible and we kept it as organic as we could. We think it works.
Do you plan to tour in Europe to celebrate Plains of Decay? I hope your Greek fans like your new album! Do you have plans to play shows in the United States? Has your band ever played here in Seattle? Do you want to play a show in a dark, cloudy, grey and rainy city?!
There are no tour plans as of yet but we are discussing with Matt from Dark Descent the possibility of getting the beast on the road again. We haven’t ever set foot on U.S soil before and we would very much like to do so. We want to play everywhere possible without losing tons of money.
Can you tell us the story behind the song “Psychedelic Tribe of Doom”? That song is heavy, but melodic and it’s also like a melodic death doom song. Did you know you wanted the song to have a feel of doom before you gave it a title?
We always want the lyrics to fit the music, this is a bet actually since I never write lyrics based on ready musical parts, but I somehow manage to achieve the perfect marriage of sick texts and even sicker music. “Psychedelic Tribe of Doom” deals with a perverted, drug consuming killer hippie commune in the vein of the Manson family that lives off hallucinogens and act as predators. I have a soft spot for such stories, I love reading and watching videos about sects, ritualistic suicides, messianic megalomaniac religious leaders, etc. That song is a rollercoaster of a song and yes it starts in a brutal manner but ends as a hymn to despair, misery, hopelessness and desolation. Marios also played a killer solo in the end of the song that further enhances the feelings I am talking about, it makes me wanna rip my flesh apart…killer.
Nothing can top the inane antics of the “Booger” days, the guys were total “Revenge of the Nerds” freaks back in the day. “Misery Loves Dead Company” is about a love story tainted by substance abuse that ended up in a really horrific manner. Yes, Necrovorous used to be more gore inspired back in the day but now we are mostly dealing with whatever we find disturbing, as for heaviness, yeah, we want it to be so heavy that can crush you under its weight, we also want it to be dark and hopeless. I think we succeed in being a band that diminishes every sense of hope even though we are not a doom band.
“Lost in a Burning Charnel Ground” shows the guitar tone at the beginning when one can hear the slow sound. I am curious. How do you get the guitar tone? I’m not sure, but do you like the early Dismember/Entombed guitar sound? They used the HM-2 pedal, but what equipment do you use? Something similar?
No Boss HM-2 pilgrimage here. We love the Swedish buzzsaw patented sound but it is as I said already done ad nauseam. Our tone is much more multi-faceted dare I say. We wanted to convey a mixed bag of a tone as our influences range from MANTAS/DEATH to DISMEMBER, TIAMAT to ROTTREVORE, DETERIOROT to GOREFEST, SEMPITERNAL DEATHREIGN to BOLT THROWER and early CARCASS. Stamos worked with a variety of heads and cabs and I honestly don’t remember what he actually ended up using.
The song “Cherish the Sepulture” is one of more direct tracks on the album. It’s a headbanging song for sure! But I cannot decide if I have a favorite song because they all sound good to me. What is your favorite song on the album? Or, is it like asking, which one of your children is your favorite?!
Seriously I really cherish (pun intended) the new album as a whole but I think the “Cherish the Sepulture”, “Psychedelic Tribe” and “The Sun Has Risen” are the most representative of the bunch. Yeah, we love all of our children they are as ugly as we are, like father, like son.
Do you have any news that you want to share now? Thank you for your time!
We have shirts and cds for sale, plus some of the older tapes and cds, get in touch or be brainwashed by a Jim Jones wannabe and drink his lethal koolaid.
We sincerely hope we play some killer shows, score more records, cds, tapes and killer flicks.
Die by Power!
necrovorous.bandcamp.com
facebook.com/necrovorous
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