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Necrophagist > Epitaph > Reviews > GS_Abbath
Necrophagist - Epitaph

Great tech demo, now where's the music? - 20%

GS_Abbath, May 11th, 2005

Necorphagist is a "group" (one man band, really) that has been getting a ton of press in the underground. People will go on and on about how Mr. Mohammed is the best metal guitarist of all time and how his music is the most technical death metal ever relaesed.

I'm here to say that that is outright wrong.

What we find with Necrophagist's music is extremely high speed music played all over the place (on the guitar). However, these are far from well thought out technical riffs in the vein of a Martyr or Suffocation, these are soulless pieces of vain glorious fret wankery that never seem to lead anywhere. The basic stucture never strays far away from its formula. You end up getting a full album of:

- Blast beats
- Some low tuned tremolo picked "complex" riffing
- Occaisional sweep
- Hyperspeed, neo-classical solos

All wrapped in a lifeless package...

This album simply trudges along the lines of heavy. It's neo-classical wankery disguised as death metal. There's nothing wrong with playing complex music. On the contrary, I'm definately a technical death fan... but only when its done with some kind of musical integrity behind it. This is a showoff album for a showoff guitarist.

That being said, the title track is listenable, as well as the opener and closer. The rest is clear filler (among filler). So those singing its praises can have fun, I'm gonna go listen to a SONG.