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NECRONOMICON EX MORTIS “Zombie Blood Nightmare”
NECRONOMICON EX MORTIS “Zombie Blood Nightmare”
By Dr. Abner Mality
GODDAMN IT! I really wanted to throw these guys to the wolves because their 80’s horror shtick is so horrendously old hat, it makes my gorge rise. In 2025, we are getting song titles like “No More Room In Hell” and “Hungry For Brains”?! That shit was old in 1990!
But...but...but I’m such a sucker for old school death thrash with shredding guitar solos. And that’s what NECRONOMICON EX MORTIS outta Chiraq purvey. Sure, thrash is popping up like zombies from a radioactive graveyard, but I just can’t deny N.E.M. do it well. This is GHOUL-level horror thrash despite all the tired aspects and riffs like the ones in “Left To Die” and “Lumbering Blood Sucking Freaks” are undeniable like Bruce Lee’s one-inch punch. The latter song in particular has a great chuggy thump that speeds up beautifully into something like ANTHRAX meets POSSESSED. And in addition to the chunky riffs, the guitars of Michael Nystrom Bala and Manuel Barbara unleash some real axe hero licks that could be found in bands like EXMORTUS or even 3 INCHES OF BLOOD! That’s a surprising part of the arsenal that many thrashers lack.
And then there’s a few little things that help put the band over the hump. One, they resist the urge to drown everything in overused samples from old movies...given the triteness of the lyrics, that must have taken big time willpower. No intros or outros, they just dive right into the gore and deliver the goods. They have been very active the last couple of years, but don’t seem to have the nerve to do a full-length...this is yet another EP. Maybe that’s the way they like it…
Cover art, song titles and subject matter are more tired than a 300 pound marathon runner, yet the songs themselves are irresistible to any fan of old school thrash-cum-death metal. Lovers of the “Evil Dead” films can add a couple of extra points.
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