The First Necromancy

I can only take so much redundancy before I go back to sweet, melodic stuff by a plethora of different bands; the simpler, the better. Witchtrap like to keep it simple, too, but their issue is everlasting redundancy. There are ten songs – two that are breathers, and eight that sound very alike; the shortest non-intro track is the best one – that should tell you something.

Production for this is hellishly bad, with my main complaint being the snares. Holy hell, I know I complain about hollow snares, but these are on the very opposite end of the spectrum – you can’t get that sound without royally fucking up the production on purpose. The thick, mechanical beat of the snare is so irritating and precise that every hit causes your hearing to be permanently damaged, and the drummer hits it every fucking second like it’s totally what he’s supposed to do. Even The Chasm’s full-length debut beats this album in the drum department, and The Chasm’s debut is one the rawest full-lengths I’ve heard in death metal.

This singer can’t get yell properly, either; need lessons, buddy? He’s trying to shout while getting a growl out of it, too, but he just sounds like an angry kid yelling for something. His dry approach is the same on every track, making it as redundant as the drumming and maybe just as annoying. I thought maybe the bass guitar would fill in some role, but that doesn’t help either. Between the buzzing of the guitars to the vocalist’s tantrums to the bonk-bonk-bonk-bonk of the drumming, you don’t hear jack shit from the bass – not a damn thing, and that’s because there isn’t any.

Now what about the riffs? This is a South American thrash metal band after all, so there must be riffs that slice and dice... well, not really. The best song I hinted to in the first paragraph is “Torment In Fire,” and even that has only a few good riffs that compete with some stuff from Slayer’s Reign In Blood, after that, I hear sporadic riffs that are decent and then the rest are boring as shit. The buzzy, weak distortion keeps this demo from ever reaching ear pleasing levels, and by “Sorceress Bitch” I already have the urge to stop playing this demo so I can move on to something better.

Poor riffs, lackluster songwriting, infuriating drums, tiring vocals, and flat production kill this overly long demo. Even with one good song, it’s not like I’d want to hear it again and again like I would with Exumer or something. Shit, 1997? By this time there was plenty of thrash that obliterates Witchtrap. I don’t know about these guys in their later stages, but I’m focusing on this right now, and it sucks.