(Norway-based NCS contributor Chile has an amazing new find he wants to recommend today, even if spelling or pronouncing it poses a challenge.)
We have already spoken many times about all the good sides and the benefits of metal music as a whole. In fact, there is so much metal going around that we will never run out of it, as opposed to water, clean air, or soil to grow our food, just to name a few. In effect, you’ll be hungry, thirsty, and full of pollutants, but at least you’ll have some great music to accompany you.
Anyway, this abundance makes life that much easier for all of us, listeners and reviewers alike, and especially those of us lucky enough to be both. Just close your eyes and at a stone’s throw in any direction, there is a great band waiting to be found.
In comes Necropolissebeht. The strangely named international crew (ok, it’s Germany and Canada), with just one previously released EP from 2022 under their belts, comes back to drain your world of hope and any traces of light in the form of their just-released debut album, similarly strangely named Taurunovem – Th’Astraktyan Serfdome.
The band’s furious attack on all of our senses would normally fall under the banner of that misrepresented bastard of a genre, namely war metal, if not for small musical phrases strewn throughout the album and the off-the-wall guitar soloing that would technically make this record some kind of avant-garde war metal (words I never thought I’d write together in a sentence).
Now, before anyone rolls their eyes, this is still first and foremost a feral display of metal’s tenacity for the extremes. Serving as a primary driving force behind the band is Hekla (also of Hadopelagyal and Pale Spektre) handling guitars, bass, and vocals, and it is her performance that makes this music so convincing in conveying that sense of otherworldly dread and doom.
Right off the start of “Thorntrail to Goregotha” we are subjected to tormented voices from the deep and a guitar tone so abyssal, it seems as if the whole pantheon of some ancient, elder evils is intent of bursting onto an unsuspecting world. It is relentless, it is overwhelming, it is (probably) a reason why your everyday folk think all metal is just noise.
Accompanying drums by Axaazaroth (also of Nuclearhammer, also seemingly not involved with Necropolissebeht anymore per some sources) are equally devastating. Bludgeoning throughout the album with precision and speed, bordering on inhuman with the constant buzz of blast beats, they make for a perfect backdrop of these morbid visions.
One thing we can certainly say about this album is that it absolutely requires repeated listens, because you will not take hold of all the nuances permeating it on your first (or second) or any kind of casual type of listening. In a time of dwindling attention spans, this thing is like a hammer to your waking state.
Look no further than to songs like the commanding “Ritual Genocide” or the equally punishing “Numinoucidal War Winds” just rampaging through a series of devastating riffs, only occasionaly being interrupted by a screaming guitar solo courtesy of Ryan Förster (of Blasphemy and Death Worship).
As the great German philosopher Hegel once said: “Nothing great in the world was accomplished without passion”. And it is precisely this passion for the sound and the fury what permeates the album, making itself comfortable in the surrounding darkness. Immerse yourself in the inimitable closer “Welterer of Gethsemania” or the echoing horrors of “The Aquamarinæbyss – Levitation of Cadaver Circuits in M-Orbit” and experience this passion firsthand.
In the end, I’m not the one to exaggerate things, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find an album released this year that will press more hard against the inside of your skull, bursting out with a constant pressure of a thousand migraines. There’s just no two ways about it, Taurunovem – Th’Astraktyan Serfdome is extreme music at its finest and we love it that way.
Taurunovem – Th’Astraktyan Serfdome is out now independently and on Amor Fati Records in all available formats. Orders for the record and all related merchandise are possible via label and Bandcamp stores.
https://necropolissebeht.bandcamp.com/album/taurunovem-th-astraktyan-serfdome
https://shop.amor-fati-productions.de/en/
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