Necrodeath, the Italian Black/Thrash legend, is back.
Created in 1984 under the name of Ghostrider, the band changes its name the following year after several demos. The adventure stops in 1990, then starts again in 1998, and it’s in 2022 that Peso (drums, ex-Sadist), Flegias (vocals, Cadaveria, ex-Opera IX), Pier Gonella (guitar, Athlantis, Mastercastle, Vanexa…) and GL (bass, Cadaveria) announce the release of Singin’ in the Pain, their thirteenth album.
We have Tony « Demolition Man » Dolan (Venom Inc, M:Pire of Evil) and Eric Forrest (E-Force, ex-Voivod) on narration.
Gang Fight kicks the album off with screams of terror and a man singing before the blasphemy really begins with saturated riffs and raw, aggressive vocals. The band still offers some worrying and soaring sounds, but the mix with the energetic blast remains catchy, just like on Transformer Treatment and its sharp leads which let the band offer us a dissonant and jerky sound. The Black Metal roots darken the track a lot, and they will also be found on The Sweet Up and Down, a rather slow composition which uses its Thrash influences for its leads and the most energetic parts. Redemperdition follows with a devastating rhythmic beat topped by vicious screams and hellish choirs for a very Old School mix, then Delicious Milk Plus will keep the oppressive and dissonant sound before the visceral acceleration arrives. The band also offers some melodious tones, then 655321 relaunches the assault under this disturbing sound fog. Lead parts could surprise by their Rock’n’Roll influences, then the final charge drives us to The (In)sane Ultraviolence which will continue to make the epic sonorities live, subjected to extreme speed or to a warlike and heady slowness. The end of the album takes shape with the short Oomny-Ones, a rather accessible composition which still takes the time to develop its suffocating dissonance and its unhealthy screams, then Antihero, introduced by a few words in French, comes to expose us one last time to the raw and unbridled violence that has been the band’s trademark for so many years, sometimes coupled with a few more festive strikes that only take a short time to revive the aggression.
Necrodeath‘s reputation precedes them, and this new album honors them as much as the previous ones. Singin’ in the Pain skillfully couples fast abrasive riffs with more unhealthy influences, creating a constant oppressive atmosphere.
85/100