Necrosmose

With a name like this you would be forgiven to expect some kind of core-ish music or a more modern form of metal. However, these French newcomers play a pretty much straight-forward, no-nonsense kind of music. Their brand of traditional yet sometimes technical death metal perfectly fits into the roster of Great Dane records so as a fan of this label it did not come as surprise to me that I absolutely enjoyed “Necrosmose”.

Increasingly rare is the band that can capture the feral nature of death metal and implement melodies that are incredibly catchy without diluting the formula. “Necrosmose” is the type of album that handles both of these things with grace and power. The guitar playing is fantastic offering enough variation ranging from harmonic mid-tempo grooves to fast and melodic sections.

The drumming is superb and feels quite relaxed for that kind of music and never too hectic. There are sections though where the tempo is upped and the playing gets tougher. That being said there is no moment that feels over the top or out of place. While proving their individual skills also ins some impressive soloing parts Armageddon Death Squad have put the main focus on the songwriting and that absolutely paid off.

The two guitar players offer a nice combination of traditional death metal riffs akin to some famous US bands and sometimes a bit more modern ones. Names like Immolation, Deicide or Monstrosity come to mind but these lads are not just copy cats. You will find the typical stoic and buzz-sawing chords as well as choppy riffs and sections where the rhythm and the tempo varies within a very short timeframe. It speaks for the songwriting skills of this band that this kind of elements never feel overly chaotic but make sense looking at the bigger picture of the songs and the whole album. The rhythms are always groovy and even in the more sophisticated sections the patterns seem well structured and each break is there for a reason.

The singer also has done a great job. His mid to low register tone perfectly fits the instrumentation and his delivery is pretty varied for a death metal album. The production is quite modern and while maybe not 100 % on par with the works by the more famous peers mentioned above it is more than serviceable. The drums have a nice punch and the guitars got that classic crunchy tone although they could have maybe been mixed a bit more into the foreground. That being said these are very minor complaints for an otherwise fantastic piece of traditional yet fresh piece of death metal.