NECROM “All Paths Are Left Here”
By Dr. Abner Mality
Well, with an album title like this and very Dan Seagrave-looking cover art, it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what NECROM are about. Yes, folks, we got a loving tribute to the Swedish death metal of old here, courtesy of these Ukrainian warriors. Now you know I love this kind of stuff when it’s done right, but is that the case here?
There’s certainly no originality here nor was there ever intended to be. But NECROM hits all the sweet spots of the Stockholm sound and pays tributes to all the usual suspects...ENTOMBED, DISMEMBER, UNLEASHED, GRAVE, etc, etc. “Dagon”, “Wall Have Hands” and “The Woods of Weird West” all have spooky atmosphere with some eerie keyboard work accentuating the super-crunchy, mid-paced riffs...think of “But Life Goes On” from ENTOMBED for comparison. There are some really straightforward fast rippers such as “Food For Worms”, “The Light Has Never Been Here” and “Tomahawk of Bone” that bring the quicker style of DISMEMBER to mind. “The City The Old Ones Built” and “The Oldest Horror” have the galloping gait of early UNLEASHED. NECROM doesn’t try to disguise their influences at all and the production here is so evocative of the early years of Swedish death metal that I was looking for the Tomas Skogsberg credit on this thing.
It all comes together on “Templars Are Coming”, no doubt dedicated to the Blind Dead, and here NECROM absolutely nail it, creating a track that equals the best of their inspirations. If a tribute to the glory years is all you’re after, this will surely satisfy you. As I write this, Ukrainians are fighting like lions against the Russian invaders and I pray NECROM are around to write a followup to this…