Necrophobic - The Nocturnal Silence

Production: Clear and heavy, bass driven with good enough range to encompass everything we'd need to hear.

Review: Necrophobic fight a difficult initial conflict attempting to avoid being lumped with the Swedish sound that has been cloned so often as to almost obscure the originals. Their method of combat so far has been to write music that is more technically advanced and more deliberate than that of the crowd - ending up with a very compact but effective style.

A single guitarist does not hamper this process: the lead guitar work that lurks on this album achieves musical significance without excessive scale-spewing or other great evils of mediocre metal. Drumming impresses for its precision and coherence with guitars, although its aims are clearly not to reinvent but to perform with enlightened function. More competent than average for metal bass, the bassist on this album folds his deviations from form well into the music to accentuate essential transition.

Tracklist:

1. Awakening... (4:25)
2. Before the dawn (4:22)
3. Unholy prophecies (5:41)
4. The nocturnal silence (5:13)
5. Shadows of the moon (1:15)
6. The ancients gate (5:30)
7. Sacrificial rites (4:52)
8. Father of creation (6:02)
9. Where sinners burn (4:11)

Length: 41:33

Necrophobic - The Nocturnal Silence: Death Metal 1994 Necrophobic

Copyright © 1994 Black Mark

Harsh vocals howl in less of a guttural chortle than a shriek of bladed throat damage. Although song structures and musical influences are anchored securely in the jazz-influenced section of rock music, the essential nature of metal comes through in the shaping of melodic patterns around harmonic cores for the purposes of song building. While sparse to the ears of those coming later, The Nocturnal Silence once discovered emerges with epic emotion supporting the raw energy and resilient natural power of these potent yet listenable songs.