Necromancy (Greece) - Ancient Wrath
Nuclear War Now! Productions
Black Metal
3 songs (20'25")
Release year: 2015
Nuclear War Now! Productions
Reviewed by Alex

Nuclear War Now! Productions has been on a tear putting out new and digging up lost releases from death and black metal underground. The label pays specific attention to the Greek black metal scene, and managed to uncover a long lost release by the band called Necromancy. It probably would have slipped by me just like many others, there is just not enough time in this world, if I wasn’t drawn to the tragic context in which Ancient Wrath saw the light of day. One of the band members, lead guitarist and vocalist Living Dead, suffered a heartattack at 20 and died, while serving in the Greek armed forces. His bandmates closed the project soon thereafter, and this MLP has remained unreleased. Morbid, a famous member of Greek metal scene, who played with Rotting Christ, Necromantia and Thou Art Lord, also had a stint with Necromancy, but wasn’t a part of Ancient Wrath recordings, at least that is my understanding. My CD shelves are still full with Black Lotus Records releases, the label Morbid ran, before it went bankrupt.

To the music now. Ancient Wrath Part 1 has some of the iciest, most chilling atmosphere you can find in a black metal record. This is not done with blistering speed, dizzying guitar tremolo playing, orchestral arrangements or animal-like distorted vocals. Instead, the Greeks are just playing endless, urgent sounding, looping riffs and clean, drilling melodies over steady rhythm section, with scratchy necrotic rasp serving for vocals. Bells from the distance and keyboard splashes are added in between two guitars trading barbs, things proceed very much mid-tempo, and there is sort of nothing out of the ordinary to distinguish the record for its individual components, yet the sum of the parts just breathes coldness and disdain for existence the likes of which are hard to find. The length of Part 1 may be a little questionable at slightly over 10 min, but then the melodies provided by Necromancy sustain interest. The whole experience is catatonic, smelling of cemetery and freshly dug out graves, or some remote Greek catacombs, yet it is definitely not cartoonish, and is a lot more Venom, Bathory and early Rotting Christ than, say, King Diamond.

Ancient Wrath Part 2 greets you very much where Part 1 left off, with another spell of hissing coldness. The track has lengthy tremolos which are certain to drive home the same set of feelings expressed earlier on Part 1. The closer Forbidden Rites has significantly more distortion than Ancient Wrath duo, it is more belligerent, varies from steady marching to more chaotic sequences, and is inevitably rawer and thrashier. It is apparently where Necromancy was musically, before it arrived to their icy version of black metal, which captured occult sense beautifully. It is too bad Living Dead did not live to hear it, and the band did not continue.

Killing Songs :
Part 1
Alex quoted 82 / 100
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