Abyss Calls Life

Tuscany’s Necromass are as good a place to start as anywhere when it comes to Italian extreme metal. Their second LP ‘Abyss Calls Life’ (1996) slots very neatly into the Southern European traditions of black metal in all its melodic hat tipping to classic metal of the two decades that preceded it. The production holds few surprises, with no thrills drums which – despite their competence – hide behind a liberal dose of reverb. But they are relegated to a more traditional rock style on here and – although doing a fine job of keeping things interesting – tend to ignore the more unconventional roles this instrument can play in extreme metal. At certain points however, they are completely dedicated to servicing the rhythmic sensibilities of the riffs, which is to the credit of the compositional sensibilities of these musicians. Vocals take the death metal approach with elongated syllables of guttural growls that grounds the music in a more sinister edge required for black metal even of this more colourful stripe.

All well and good, but such things are a mere sideshow for the relentless interplay of twin guitar leads and complex bass work which – to the mixes credit – is audible and welcome throughout. Although this is generally slower than Rotting Christ or Varathron, the music still has a dynamism and drive to it that never lets up throughout the album’s runtime. This is achieved predominantly by the restless melodic purpose to the guitars. It seems that all the effort was put into making sure this instrument shines through even more than usual for what is essentially classic heavy metal; their melody and counterpoint, the delicate picking of the clean passages backed up by the most subtle of synth accompaniments, or their gradual evolution through different motifs via various iterations at different tempos and rhythms.

So to some extent I remain I’m torn over this album. In one sense this is nothing I have not heard before, but in another my ear remains drawn to it after repeated listens. The reason for this is obvious of course; there simply is no substitute for good writing. On the on hand this is just a very good slab of melodic metal that draws on many traditions within the genre’s long and proud history to craft a rich and nuanced work, one with many treasures to reveal even after multiple listens. On the other hand one could say that this album transcends such a reading. It seems a disservice to say that it is simply a ‘very good’ example of melodic black metal. A lot of bands that play this variety of black metal – one that requires balance and restraint as much as a wealth of ideas and attention to detail – do not achieve in their entire career what Necromass pulled off on ‘Abyss Calls Life’. It seems we must step up our language when couching this album and declare it a paragon of this non-Norwegian informed strain of black metal that was so prolific at this time in Southern Europe. A formidable slab of metal by any measure.

Necromass, whilst remaining very much in Europe when it comes to stylistic references, have gone hell for leather when it comes to their study of melody in crafting ‘Abyss Calls Life’, and produced an album of energy and colour with few equals.

Originally published at Hate Meditations

Necromass are considered a small cult in the Italian underground scene and their albums are very hard to find. “Abyss Calls Life” is their second one and features their classical occult metal; basically a mix of primitive black/death with doom influences and some use of keyboards to give to the music a more ritualistic sound.

The frequent use of growl voice instead of the scream one (just in few cases appears) shows the most primordial side of their music. Surely their biggest influences can be found in groups like early Death SS, for the occult-ritualistic side and Mortuary Drape for the gloomy music. The guitars are a good mix of pure black metal with some thrash/death riffs to give more power to the songs.

The first track is not excellent but already shows us the music style. Gloomy atmosphere and quite slow drums; just the bass drum is a bit faster and its continuous sound creates a hypnotizing effect. The quite frequent synth breaks are very good. Sometimes the vocals are whispered with some effects. The following song is one of the longest here: the black guitars riffs sometimes end to leave the place for some acoustic arpeggios followed by synth.

The music is never fast, and I think they decided to focus the attention on the most gloomy side. They achieved that goal but some songs are quite long and it’s inevitable that they turn to be a bit boring in some parts. It’s hard to keep the intensity and attract the attention of the listener in every single riff. Anyway, a song like “Into The Warmth Of Darkness”, with a good mix of different styles of growls and a very good black metal riff (the main one), is quite interesting.

While “Bloodstorm Collide” shows more progressive patterns in the guitars with a true scary synth sound at 3:50, “Impure” is again total black in the atmosphere. The title track is a short, acoustic one made of only the sound of an acoustic guitar. So obscure and good. “A Serpent Is Screaming In The Abyss” is the true “hit” here: often it changes of atmospheres and the guitars work makes this song a true gem. At 7:03 I was astonished because the guitar solo is incredibly similar to the Death progressive era!!

Well, ending this review I must say that I quite liked this album, even if it’s not awesome. It’s a quite good small piece of history made of quite good songs (one very good). What is great here is the fact they didn’t need to use a bunch of synth sounds for create a real evil atmosphere, and I appreciated this a lot. Ah, I forgot to tell you that if you are searching for fast music, stay away…it’s better.