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Exhumed > Necrocracy > Reviews
Exhumed - Necrocracy

Exhumed - Necrocracy - 95%

Orbitball, May 6th, 2019
Written based on this version: 2013, Digital, Relapse Records (Bandcamp)

Absolutely grueling material! I love the vocal trade-offs, too. The music is absolutely amazing. The guitars and vocals are the pinnacle of this album release. I'm surprised that it didn't get more reviews. 5 seems sketchy, hopefully this will bring it even more justice. These guys really tear it up in the riff department. Leads as well. Absolutely everything fit on this release. The music, vocals, production and drums. They did themselves a favor and laid out some unrelenting death metal. It's definitely better than the release that I own. Now, I want to own this one.
But anyway, they really change it up all the time.

Tempos all over the place, but appropriately. Both the screaming and low bellow vocals make it more versatile. The music and the vocals are in the same time and flow really well. They're masterminds working on here. I hope for more albums to come. But yeah, we can enjoy them for now especially with releases like this. I liked it right away. The music was the first thing that blew me away! The vocals are tolerable, too! But the fact that they could do it all with this release is fantastic. No Exhumed record that I liked than this one. It has me hooked, totally! There wasn't a dull moment on the songs.

Each track is about 3-4 minutes in length. It's enough, though I hoped that the release was longer. There are bonus tracks but the main release is where it's at. Most of the tracks you have screaming and some pretty bad-ass riffing alongside the vocals. The guitars rip the rhythms are doing a lot of tremolo picking as well as some technical leads. The trade-offs on the leads are phenomenal. There is some blast beating here, but a lot of the music is melodic so they're versatile here. The songs are in your face brutality. They are just flat out heavy and brutal. But the music is varying as well.

If you don't own this, check it out on Spotify or YouTube. It's hard to name one track since all of them (to me) are phenomenal. And yeah, melodic guitar too. Melodic leads as well. It isn't all the time brutal, but most of the time, it is. I'd say if you're a lover of death metal or the guitar or both this would fit your protocol. Nothing on here misses, it's a glory of sheer brutal death metal. No matter what track you listen to here, they're all good so take that into account. The whole album is about 40 minutes long. And yeah, it is worth getting to support the scene and the band. Exhumed is some killer death metal and this is my favorite of theirs by far! OWN IT!!

Gerryhandering - 84%

GuntherTheUndying, December 8th, 2014

Matt Harvey seemed full of energy when I saw Exhumed on tour with Carcass. Having Exhumed warm up the grinding gear for Carcass made complete sense, of course, as both bands are quite close on the long and complicated diagram that makes up death metal’s nuclear family—the uncle and the nephew, playing catch on a gor(y)geous summer day. It almost bothers me to see Exhumed constantly labeled torchbearers of the Carcass sound(s), because Exhumed has proven its worth as a death metal juggernaut. None of their records are remotely bad, their style of death metal/grind never cuts corners, and there is a light-hearted humor among the ghastly themes and goings-on of the abattoir à la Bruce Campbell fighting his severed hand in Evil Dead 2. Disliking any facet of the band is pretty much out of question.

“Necrocracy” seems to have been slapped with the ‘maturity’ tag, or called by some—much to my disdain—the band’s “Heartwork.” These songs are a bit longer and more developed than slaughterhouse classics like “Limb from Limb,” sure. And yeah, there is certainly a melodic component here that is more animated than ever. But let’s not go overboard; the things that made Exhumed a bloody good time have not gone anywhere. The Carcass-esque riffing paying homage to “Necroticism” (yeah, I know) and the squad’s bobbing between turbo-charged, blast-laden sections and crushing medial-paced patterns aren’t pulling any zombie rabbits out of Harvey’s hat, so to speak. The melodic bits come as a bit of a shock, yet they are organically placed between Exhumed’s traditionalized parts; quite enriching among the carnage, really.

The minor changes within the creative element are more of a sickening metamorphosis than progression, deforming the beast that much more. “Necrocracy” caters mostly to the energy and expertise of the band while presenting memorable, authentic slabs of death metal with no shortage of striking riffs or intricate situations. I enjoy the devastating mid-paced bridge in “Carrion Call” the most, but none of these tunes fall short. “Coins upon the Eyes” and “Sickened” are the usual Exhumed outputs in quality, brought under an updated light in 2014 by increased melodic elements and grotesque hooks (every abattoir needs them, you know). The dueling vocalist situation involving Harvey’s barks and guttural vocals is surprisingly decent; I’m usually not too big on it, but the overlaps and tradeoffs have a delightful impact.

Perhaps the most accessible record done under the Exhumed banner, “Necrocracy” leaves little left to the imagination. Nine ravaging, gore-smeared tunes of melodically-tinted death metal is the name of the game throughout “Necrocracy,” and certainly no secret is left unshared by the end of its forty-minute run. However, there is a likeable refinement among Exhumed’s go-for-the-throat mentality that has never led the group astray. Harvey still has the riffs to break necks and the songwriting skills to retain stylistic freshness despite refusing to clean his killing floor after accumulating countless limbs over the past twenty-five years. There is no reason for seasoned death metal veterans to turn away from Exhumed, a group that is somehow still underrated, and that just does not fly anymore.

This review was written for: www.Thrashpit.com

The rotting is strumming on your heartstrings - 90%

EyesOfGlass, September 4th, 2014
Written based on this version: 2013, CD, Relapse Records

Exhumed have come a long way since their early grindcore days back in the early 1990’s. After spending nearly a decade releasing only demos, the band’s debut full-length, Gore Metal, arrived towards the end of the century, more specifically in 1998. From there on, Exhumed started to progressively evolve into a pure death metal outfit, which was finally confirmed with their 2005 swansong Anatomy Is Destiny, successor to 2000’s sophomore release Slaughtercult. After three albums of grinding, face-melting death metal, Exhumed went into a 5-year hiatus, which was broken three years ago with the release of their overall fourth album, All Guts, No Glory. Necrocracy, released last year, is the fifth album in Exhumed’s catalog, and I’d say that this is the band’s most mature and ambitious release to date.

Let’s be honest, we’ve all heard the “mature” shit before. Hell, I’m even using it right now. But I’m being serious, things have changed in Exhumed’s base camp since they began playing, and they changed for better. When a band goes from singing “I collect the putrid offal in a Ziploc body bag” to “Led to feast on our undoing as a marionette upon its strings, as we succumb to derangement, this requiem we sing” you know something has changed. Leaving the gory, medical Carcass-influenced lyrics of their early albums behind in order to embrace themes concerned to nowadays’ reality is a welcome change in direction. I mean, I really like their earlier works, but no one can beat Carcass where medical terms are concerned. Not only lyrically, but also musically this is probably Exhumed’s most ambitious release, something I’ve already said, so let’s see why.

First of all, the guitars. On one hand there are the riffs. Matt Harvey and Bud Burke are on fucking fire on this release. The riffs are a precise and deadly combination of thrashy string work with the typical tremolo riffage and rather technical passages, many of them reminiscent of the times of Heartwork. Most of the songs (if not all of them) go into one or two thrash breaks with delicious and intense riffing from both axemen, like the opener “Coins Upon the Eyes”, “Dysmorphic” (which also includes an acoustic break, another new dimension in Exhumed’s music), “(So Passes) The Glory of Death” or “The Carrion Call”, just to name a few. Necrocracy could be considered as the confirmation of All Guts, No Glory in this aspect, as the previous release also made use of this combination of guitar work, but it wasn’t as deadly and effective as it is on this album. I have always loved Matt’s ability to channel thrash’s intensity through his riffs and merge them with death metal's aggression, and this is no exception to the rule. If the riffs on the “Die…” section of “Coins Upon the Eyes” or those after the interlude on “Dysmorphic” aren’t enough for you to drop dead on the floor, there’s another half an hour of sheer intensity waiting for you on Necrocracy. And if that isn’t enough, it's most probably that you're already dead.

And then there are the solos and leads. Oh, dear Lord those solos. Since Gore Metal, Exhumed has used the combination of grinding songs with melodic leads and solos, which were rather primitive back then and had been constantly progressing. Here on Necrocracy Matt and Bud took it seriously and came up with their most melodic passages and solos that Exhumed has ever had, exchanging leads and solos on every song. With a very Heartwork-like tone, the leads pop up when you less expect them and the solos are very well constructed, with an exact balance between speed, technicality and melody without forgetting the aggressive nature of this music. The soloing sections of “Dysmorphic” and “The Rotting” speak for themselves, but all the tracks have solos and leads to delight your ears. I really like the way the aggression of the songs compliments the melodic side on the soloing sections, resulting in a nice balance between both sides.

But, after all, we all know what Matt’s mob has been playing all these years, fucking death metal, and Necrocracy is no exception to the rule. Exhumed has not forgotten yet what they’re all about, and tracks like “Necrocracy”, “Sickened”, “(So Passes) The Glory of Death”, “Ravening” demonstrate that Exhumed has a lot to offer still.  “Sickened” is probably the most death metal track on the album, with a big grindcore feel to it, both in the drumming and the riffs. “Necrocracy” and “Ravening” have their fair bits of sheer death metal intensity as well. The vocals are also worth of mention, as Matt pulls off one of his most competent performances ever, and together with recently-entered bassist Rob Babcock, they continue with their traditional exchange of harsh screams and deep grunts respectively, which are at its best on the pummeling “(So Passes) The Glory of Death.”

Exhumed has been involved with the death metal scene for little more than two decades now, and although they’ve had their ups and downs along the way, Matt and co. show no signs of slowing down at all. I even dare to say that the band is at its best as of 2014, and proof of it is found on Necrocracy, an album packed with worthwhile, grinding death metal that succeeds to channel the genre’s essence throughout its nine songs. This is the kind of album that I can give countless of spins and never get tired of it. I’m really curious about what Exhumed will come up with next time and if it will follow the same path of these two recent albums. If they succeed in bringing to the table another album of this quality, I’d dare to say that they’re one of the finest exponents the genre has nowadays.

Originally submitted to http://theforlornson.wordpress.com/

Necrocracy For All Necromaniacs! - 84%

Daru_Jericho, October 29th, 2013

In 2010, Californian goregrinders Exhumed reunited after five years and released the relentless ‘All Guts, No Glory’, a fine addition to the canon of Exhumed material. This summer, the gorehounds are back with another full-length. Enter ‘Necrocracy’.

There is quite a difference between ‘All Guts, No Glory’ and this new homage to horror. The most notable change is the reduction of the gritty grindcore influence that so prominently defined their sound. The inclusion of melodic death metal leads (in the vein of later Carcass, surprise surprise) and guitar harmonies are a solid change, as heard most commendably on the title track. The attention to punchy rhythms is still there, now juxtaposed with slow and sinister moments and even some heavy metal influence; ‘Dysmorphic’ is bisected by a guitar lead that sounds like it came from an Accept intro. The solos are intricate and impressive, also showcasing a heavy metal tone.

Some of the death metal follows the unflavoured modern Cannibal Corpse style, such as opener ‘Coins Upon the Eyes’, and is one of the weaker points of the album. Frontman Matt Harvey’s vocals are a lot thinner than his usual barks (possibly due to damage?) and as result do not sound as violent as the previous album. Nonetheless, they fit the bill well enough and in a live environment, the usual fare of shout along choruses of ‘Carrion Call’ and ‘The Shape of Deaths to Come’ that Exhumed enjoy employing will win solid reactions.

Exhumed are still as formidable as ever, shaking up their compositions and spreading their brutal wings. It may not be the days of Carcass-influenced goregrind on ‘Gore Metal’ but at least they are still drawing influence from Carcass, just the latter part of their career.

Originally written for www.soundshock.com

A Matured Exhumed - 96%

shri_ace13, August 12th, 2013

Are you on the lookout for a new band that out brutalizes every other band out there? Searching for something that is filled with riffs written in such a way that its sole purpose seems to be to squish your head to a pulp? Do you want a fast, mind numbing wall of noise? Then this is NOT the album that you are looking for. Because, Exhumed has come out with something that you might not have heard from them till now. They have released a very mature album.

Exhumed, one of the forerunners that fill their music with heaps of gore, are a death metal / grindcore band from San Jose, California, USA. Known for the gore in their signature deathgrind sound, these giants recently released their sixth full length album 'Necrocracy', on 6th August 2013 through Relapse Records.

It has kind of become customary for a release by Exhumed to feature a major change in the line up and this album is no exception. One of the biggest changes is the return of shredder Bud Burke after 9 long years. Over time, his guitar work has seems to have matured and evolved to a great degree and this shows in 'Necrocracy'.

Having after released the masterpiece named 'All Guts, No Glory', just two years ago, the band takes a different approach to this album. While the former spewed unrelenting gore and brutally heavy deathgrind, 'Necrocracy' takes a more mature road. The grindcore influence seemed to have evaporated from the band's music, as they deliver a more straight up Death Metal record with this one.

The guitar riffs by Bud Burke and Matt Harvey are brilliantly crafted and the songs contain a certain tune or melody. The songs do not attempt to be brutal and the focus here is merely upon song writing. Nonetheless, a certain amount of brutality is evoked by the riffs. The guitar solos are something worth a million repeated listens. A fact that every song contains such a solo, should speak much for the amount of talented musicianship on this record.

The vocal work is handled once again by Bud Burke, who performs some deathly and sinister gutturals, and Matt Harvey, who screeches his way through the record. Together, just like their guitar work, they deliver a solid performance in the vocal sections too. The drumming by Mike Hamilton, is not as chaotic and frenzied as heard in 'All Guts, No Glory'. The drumming here is much more structured, adapting effectively to the change in sound.

The bass work by Rob Babcock is quite classy and it nicely complements the music. The sudden tempo shifts are still present in the music, as the band keeps it varied with rapid tempo and mid tempo tunes. The start stop style of music performed by these guys, makes for an interesting listen.

Now, let me address the main question here. Is this album better than 'All Guts, No Glory', which till now has been regarded as their best work? The answer is subjective. Their previous album and 'Necrocracy' are two separate entities and it would be unwise to draw comparisons. While their previous album was a slab of gory brutality, this is a more mature album with some insanely good song writing. Hence this album deserves to be judged as a stand alone record.

If one hasn't given this band a try before, this is a good starting point as any. Excellent shredding and masterfully crafted songs filled with hooks are what characterize this album.

Originally written for : http://metalgallows.blogspot.com

Where a Vote for Death is a Vote for Fun - 80%

autothrall, August 7th, 2013

The summer of 2013 provides us a rather interesting opportunity to pit the work of a death metal master against one of its brightest pupils. I've not yet had the chance to give the Carcass reunion effort Surgical Steel more than a cursory listening, and will wait until picking up the whole record before getting into more analysis, but I CAN tell you that the latest Exhumed effort, Necrocracy, more than holds its own against the samples I've heard. The student isn't receiving straight As across the board here, but Exhumed has never let me down, at least not with a proper full-length, and that isn't about to change with their 5th original album, a volley of tightly knit, thrashing death & grind which honors the Carcass legacy with a jubilant, blood-dripping rhythmic cleaver.

Necrocacy doesn't fall far from where All Guts, All Glory left off, only the production seems a little more compact and rich in execution. If you've heard any of the Californians' prior efforts, then the material will come as no surprise, a hybrid of Symphonies of Sickness/Necroticism era clinical rhythm progressions with a medley of carnal snarls and deeper gutturals that intertwine in a morgue room conversation while the riffs pick over the listeners' remains. Exhumed aren't quite so savage and go-for-the-throat as you might have recalled from Gore Metal or the superb Slaughtercult, but I think it's simply that, with experience, they've gone out for a more controlled production environment where the riffs aren't so blocky and overpowering, and the more carefully detailed leads (almost all of which are great here) definitely hearken back to their 2003 disc Anatomy is Destiny, where arguably they had begun this process of refinement and 'maturity'. But fear not, gore-drenched masses, because Matt Harvey and company have not abandoned you; the lyrics and themes running through the album retain that tongue-in-cheek, surgical ward wink and a nod.

The drums here are really clean sounding, with a lot of volume and bluntness to the kick which puts it on a level with the vocals as the dominant force on the record. Across this dance the thrashing, Heartwork and Necroticism inspired rhythms and harmonies which also take cues not only from the UK gods, but also from classic Californian thrash/speed metal entities like Exodus and Megadeth, and some Napalm Death blast segments for good measure. Bass lines are thick and get a chance to breathe once in a while, though they often accompany the rhythm guitar notes pretty tightly. The vocals are constantly alternating between the traditional Carcass tropes, only the rasped style here has a bit more of a splatterpunk feel to it (like The Accused) and the gutturals aren't quite so overbearing or ominous as they were on older albums (or the seminal works of their prime influence). I do wish they were a little more ghastly and off the meathook, there are points where the syllabic carnage feels too controlled, but when you consider all the vocalists are also playing instruments, they're more than functional and retain their classic personality.

Necrocracy really just comes down to the hooks, of which it provides a near ceaseless parade. Grinding chord progressions often support mid-paced grooves while the uptempo stuff is heavily laden with the traditional, pathos-inducing tremolo patterns and razor-edged harmonies. Rarely a moment passes where you won't feel the urge to whip your neck around and live out a slasher flick antagonist's wet dreams, but the majority of the patterns meted out aren't quite novel, just jerked from the Exhumed/Impaled playbook and executed with exactness. If they weren't pretty damn catchy, that wouldn't be enough here, but tunes like "Ravening", "The Shape of Deaths to Come" and "(So Passes) The Glory of Death" are visceral and exciting enough that you wanna keep spinning through them repeatedly, and the album succeeds on a number of levels: a formidable deathgrind disc, a decent thrash album, etc. Not to mention, the five bonus tracks on the limited edition add some further versatility, from a straight grind ejaculation ("Chewed Up, Spit Out") to the doomlike instrumental ("E Pluribus, Mortem)", which offers a great soundtrack for your next illegal after hours exhumation. A lot of punch here for the money, a damn jolly summer bonesaw. Take That, teach!

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com