Asphyx – ‘Necroceros’

Asphyx – ‘Necroceros’

22 January 2021 – Century Media

Words: Mark Green

I’ve always considered Dutch deathsters Asphyx to create the kind of music to accompany some kind of evil ritual with regular frenzied beatings in between. Now more than 30 years in the game with numerous death metal releases under their belts, you might think that the band would slow down a bit…and they have. In a good way.

We still have smatterings of the classic death metal gore that Asphyx like to dish out, but ‘Necroceros‘ has a more slowed down, methodical pace than in previous outings, focusing on the heavy catches and making us gurn with every head nod. Imagine the slow death metal chugg of Obituary transforming in to anything that has Kirk Windstein’s name on. There are shoegaze moments where we should just listen, I mean truly listen, to what we are being presented with. Yes, Asphyx have slowed things down before on previous albums, but not to this extent.

We start off fast out of the gates with ‘The Sole Cure Is Death‘, angry and letting us know business is meant. The pace from here starts slowing down, with the likes of ‘Mount Skull‘ and ‘Knights Templar Stand‘ full of Doom and sludge. ‘Three Years of Famine‘ is a melancholy number with guitars sounding heavy as hell, to make us feel like we’re on the highway there. It’s like it’s telling us to sit back, relax and enjoy the bleak ride. We are lured in to a false sense of security and then

‘Botox Implosion‘ hits us like a sledgehammer to the face. It is a sudden wake up call, with the signature thrash and groove we know to come from Asphyx. The torturous strained vocals of Martin van Drunen add some utterly evil elements are part of the staple sound of Asphyx, and this is demonstrated no better than on the title track album closer.

This is not the album we expected, but it doesn’t have to be in order to be great. And this is great. May the evil continue.