Necrot : "Blood Offerings"

Well when these guys have their PR people claim they sound like classic death metal they are not lying.
It reminds me a little of early Sepultura. They grind into a little harder on "Rather Be Dead" which has more of a Obituary sound though the vocals are less interesting. The drummer is on point, but that is what comes with the job description of playing with a death metal band. The goal after this song becomes to listen for what would be a sound that is more their own for those might be this album's more unique moments. The aggression is still amped up to the max for "Shadow and Light". There is more "Altars of Madness" here. The title track has the weight of a juggernaut behind it's double bass driven charge, but nothing else in terms of dynamics. So about four songs is my threshold for straight ahead death metal that didn't come out in the 90s.

How fair is that you ask? Pretty fucking fair considering Morbid Angel, Deicide, Obituary, Sepultura, Incantation , Carcass and Death are all humans and if we are operating under the premise that all humans are created equal then any one that is a musician should be held to the same standard of other human musicians. Are there some powerful and head bang inspiring riffs here? Yes, but the rule is cool riffs alone don't make a good song."Empty Hands" has a few riffs that stand out in a few sections , but not really making it stand out from the rest of this furious chug fest that is slowly growing stale. I was almost positive that the momentum of "Beneath" was going to help this one fly by in a brutal blur that would have left my head spinning. But who am I fooling I have listened to too much metal at this point to get bull dozed by heaviness alone and my threshold hold for it has increased over the years blogging. I will say it is one of the more tolerable songs on this album.

"Breathing Machine " just finds them able to to this kind of death metal 70 percent better than they have before on this album. The fact that there is more groove certainly helps and this lack of groove is what hinders the forward charge of "Layers of Darkness that ' closes the album. This song comes across more rushed.Any end of the year list that has this album on it is just trying to fool you are they really miss late 80's death metal. I 'll give this album a 7.5.