Dawn of the Damned

While Necrophobic are one of those bands that have hardly changed over the years and most likely will never change much in the years ahead, I had somehow ended up losing interest in their later works. Since curiosity got the best of me and I had decided to give Dawn of the Damned a try, but I didn’t expect too much out of this album besides another statement of the band’s consistency in terms of sound.

Necrophobic still sounds like Necrophobic here. You don’t need to hear Dawn of the Damned to know that, but surprisingly enough the band sounds extremely passionate here. Piercing tremolo passages that harken all the way back to the Darkside era rapidly emerge between the thundering drum passages and create an aura of controlled, yet diabolic chaos that’s undeniable Necrophobic-esque, as notable right away on the blasphemous, yet dynamic attack of ‘’Darkness Be My Guide’’. Blastbeats intensify certain moods when necessary, yet Dawn of the Damned certainly doesn’t dependent on them, which allows the album to breathe from time to time (not that I’d mind a non-stop blasting Necrophobic track here and there or anything, but intensity for intensity’s sake isn’t everything). Now back since Mark of the Necrogram, Anders Strokirk screams about the usual topics you’d expect of this band and while he doesn’t sound as gruff as once did, his raspy deliver matches Dawn of the Damned well enough.

But here comes the most interesting part: Dawn of the Damned sounds surprisingly diverse, yet at the same time Necrophobic's identity remains present, resulting into a few tracks that aren’t necessarily Necrophobic-esque by nature, yet work in the band’s (satanic) favor. The icy guitar cuts of ‘’Tartarian Winds’’ owe perhaps more to Bathory circa Blood Fire Death than anything else and the result is a welcoming mini-epic that recalls lost souls triumphantly marching towards the gates of hell. ’The Shadows’’ sounds like a good old horror tale King Diamond had come up with and thanks to its catchy appeal, it’s about as fun as Necrophobic will ever. At last, ‘’Devil’s Spawn Attack’’ might as well be the band’s most ripping and thrash-like creation since The Nocturnal Silence era where Anders Strokirk's raspy roars match Schmier’s glass-shattering wails.

But there’s even more: the two epic compositions that are obviously notable as they both reach the seven minute mark. However, I should admit that I’m not too enthusiastic about one of them. Whereas ‘’The Infernal Depths of Eternity’’ flows through several intense sections before reaching its climax around the five minute mark with no problems at all, ‘’The Return of a Long Lost Soul does end up rather lost. Somehow it never manages to picks up in terms of intensity thanks to the melodic, yet uninteresting riffs the track gets carried onward with no avail. Let’s just stick to one epic tune from now on, shall we?

Nitpicking aside – how these guys manage to keep on going I’ll never know, but more power to them. Dawn of the Damned sounds like a recognizable, yet appealing record that caught me off guard in the best way possible. You simply can’t go wrong with this album.