CD Review: Exhumed – Necrocracy
Relapse Records
All Access Rating: A-
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| Exhumed - Necrocracy 2013 |
The sicker the better for guitarist/vocalist Matt Harvey,
the lone original member of Exhumed left standing after more than 20 years of
lineup instability, and he appreciates the sacrifice of those who have shuffled
off this mortal coil in shockingly violent fashion. For without them, he’d have
nothing to sing about – well, except politics, that is. And relationships, societal
decay and economic distress … see there’s more going on with Exhumed than meets
the eye. Take Necrocracy, Exhumed’s
upcoming release for Relapse Records, for example.
Decomposing flesh and maimed bodies make for not-so-subtle
metaphors of a bloated U.S. political system being drawn and quartered by
corruption, greed and the erosion of civil rights in the punishingly heavy,
high-velocity death-metal of “The Rotting,” the title track and “Carrion Call.”
Or maybe Exhumed just enjoys a good lyrical blood feast now and then.
Whatever the case, Necrocracy
– due out in August – also happens to contain some of the meatiest riffage of
Exhumed’s tortured lifespan. Mauling, churning guitars, back-breaking tempo changes, frenzied
blast beats and cave-deep growls and feral screeching reanimate an Exhumed that still
looks to traditional thrash and death-metal misanthropes like Carcass and
Entombed as mentors of death-metal mayhem. Thatching together a multi-layered
bulletproof vest of overlapping, ever-evolving guitar parts and low-slung bass rumbling,
Exhumed mines an infectious, visceral groove in “Coins upon the Eyes” that’s
resistant to antibiotics, while “Dysmorphic” grinds flesh, tendons and bones
into hamburger with flesh-tearing hooks of great tensile strength, unstoppable
momentum and searing guitar leads – all of it bridged briefly with a rickety
acoustic passage of evil that portends doom.
There is melody to be found in the surprisingly
well-sculpted twin-guitar figures planted throughout Necrocracy and the rare progressive passages unearthed in
“Sickened,” but there’s gold to be discovered in the mountains of furious, doom-laden
riffs on Necrocracy, not to mention the
demented, contorted dynamics that twist the dizzying “The Shapes of Deaths to
Come” and “(So Passes) the Glory of Death” into impossible metal yoga
positions.
Not addicted to speed anymore, Exhumed takes obscene
pleasure in witnessing the trudging, writhing agony of their complex instrumental movements, but when the time is right to go on a murderous sonic rampage, they never hesitate. Necrocracy is a pit of sinister, angry pythons slithering all over each other and ready to squeeze the life out of anything that engages it. It goes down a maze of dark scary alleys that reek of death, and it runs with the bulls, almost hoping to get gored. Though they
add demonic texture at times, the terrifying vocals can be a little much, as are the
excessive and sometimes gratuitous lyrical autopsies performed here. Dig past
that, and Necrocracy rewards bravery
and a strong stomach.
– Peter Lindblad
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