Necromantia - Greek black metal

Necromantia

To The Depths We Descend...

The Circle Music / Hell's Fire Records / Rabauw Records

15 October 2021

Necromantia was there in the early days of black metal in Greece in the late 1980s, behind Rotting Christ whose origins reach back into 1984. Along with Varathron, Necromantia were names that people outside Greece associated with Greek black metal on the trail after Rotting Christ. Necromantia was in some ways a great illustration of the country's sound in the genre, which is to say, obscurantist, horror-based, synth-friendly, somewhat weird, a bit experimental, heavy and ominously melodic, and raw, with Varathron pushing things a bit towards the weirdness more than Necromantia and Rotting Christ. Necromantia was not narrow blasting, minimalist black metal, although there was no shortage of raw black metal energy, and they have come to be known for their bass-friendly sound of something like thunderbass obscurantist black metal due to their eight-string bassist being prominently featured in the music. Then, the bad news happened when in 2019 their beloved eight-string bassist Baron Blood died. Necromantia is now saying that this is their last album and it is a dedication to the bassist, but the album does not feature the eight-string because that's Baron Blood's trait. Here the music is black metal with shrieked vocals, and certainly a lot more streamlined, compact than their foundational albums. The guitar playing is tight and also melodic, the bass guitar is very present but in a more traditional way (less rumbling, less thunderbass, so to speak). For the most part, fans of melodic black metal in general would be interested in hearing what appears to be lots of hard work put into giving the songs an abundance of melody throughout. The aspects associated with early Greek black metal and with Necromantia are to be found in the use of keyboards, and in the sense of obscurantist stylings. In addition, the patented weirdness of Necromantia appears in instrumentals in tracks three and six as ambient pieces, with six showing some saxophone/flute(?) (sampling?). The result is some fast, blasting songs; some midtempo anthemic numbers; some instrumentals. All in all, it is a contemporary melodic black metal album (eight tracks in some 52 minutes), with some prototypical old Greek components.

https://www.facebook.com/necromantiaband

To the Depths we descend by NECROMANTIA