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Imagine the monstrosity that would be a love child between the likes of Dissection, Witchery and Dark Funeral. Though not as excelled as each of those three are in their respective fields, Necrophobic once again delivers another promising display of melodic black metal, featuring some phenomenal fret work by members Johan Bergeback and Sebastian Ramstedt under the influence of classic NWOBHM. This all adds up to an interesting mix of sound, lacking in the repetitiveness that wears with extended listens to Dark Funeral and bands of that like while hosting more of the edge I’d like to hear from Witchery. And of course any band that is so open in their music with love and worship of the godlike Dissection is cool in my books.

Vocal and drum wise though I’m gonna have to say meh. The rough screamy stuff gets the job done but is more or less just there. And the drums are kind of on the bland side unfortunately, which is always surprising to hear on this kind of record. The guitars are what this album depends on to breach one’s inhibitions and they certainly pulled it off on this reviewer. The sharp melodic slicing of the leads and the really rippin’ solos are simply a blast to take in. I’d say this reflects on a band that enjoys playing their stuff rather than coming off as all cold and serious about being really Satanic necrofiends. Or I could be totally wrong, but whatever. If you dig bands trying to pull off some originally sinister riffage then Necrophobic should supply a healthy fix.

I can’t really compare this one to the bands previous works since this is the first I’ve heard of them, but I have the wits about me to travel through the band’s back catalogue to get an idea of their progression up until this point.