Necrot : "Lifeless Birth"

This band's first two albums both only earned a 7.5 from us. Meaning they are decent at what they do, and those are not bad albums, but when it comes to making time to listen to a death metal album in my free time when not reviewing albums, it's not going to be one of there as there are bands that do it better. The opening track shows some bands also do it worse and are not anywhere near as polished when it comes to the execution of this sort of thing. Some of my lukewarm reception to this band lies in the fact that many of the songs on their albums tend to sound the same. When it comes to this album speed is a factor, the cadence of the vocals changed enough for me to realize this was not the opening track. 

The blur of hyper-aggression causes "Superior" to snarl out from its attack on your ears with an indistinguishable fury from the anger that drove the first two songs. The riffs are not written in a way that might make this kind of impression any easier. There is one riff that stands out from the murk a little but cool riffs alone does not a good song make. The first song that finds itself standing out is "Drill the Skull". It is more deliberate and proves backing off from the one-dimensional speed attack plays in their favor. 'Winds of Hell" must be about steamy farts, as it does not feel evil. This album is however proving an interesting study in intention when it comes to metal. If Deicide was playing this exact same song it would feel evil as Glen Benton has a more diabolical intent in his delivery. As someone who adores all adulation of darkness, I would prefer someone to express what finds that place more honestly than referring to Hell like they are narrating a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. 

There is more hook to the riff that opens 'Dead Memories' so that gets my hopes up. It feels like Entombed covering a Slayer song. The song itself is ok for what it is, but not really blowing me away. The last song is solid for what it is, but the problem with it is that just is not very original and nothing sets these guys apart from hundreds of death metal bands doing the same thing. I have an entire month of the blog dedicated to death metal, so saying it's not my thing does not work either, bands no matter the genre have to work harder to set themselves apart from the pack as the market gets more over-saturated. With that said this album is a cut above the first two and finds them earning an 8 instead,  not album of the year quality or even top 10, but it is worth indiscriminate death metal fans giving a listen. It's being released on Tank Crimes on April 12th. 

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