Goblins Be Thine

Necrophagia is one of the oldest death metal bands, and that apparently gives them a credit that they just shouldn't have. Necrophagia relies mostly on the scariness of their vocals and intros to gather its fans, a strategy that is, at least, lame. "Goblins Be Thine" pretty much summarizes what this band is up to. This EP has slow riffs, "atmospheric" intros that just run for too long and overused synthesizers and samples, all in an ultimate effort to bring the most "horror" they can into metal.

Having been reformed three times, the only original member that remains in the band is its vocalist, Killjoy. And damn, he does a good job. He does some of the most brutal growls and fearsome screams that I have ever seen. His voice is also very well produced, and ends up being the only thing that is actually scary in this recording.

Of course, vocals won't carry an entire EP by themselves, especially not this one. The vocals, although amazing, are barely present even in the best songs (which are The Fog and Goblins Be Thine by the way), and the rest of the elements simply suck. Not that the band lacks technical skills, but in order to not break the "mood" they end up slowing down all the songs and overusing riffs to the point of being unbearable. They do pick up the pace in some songs (being The Fog the best example) but when they do they slow down quickly, which makes the whole experience not rewarding enough.

However, no overused riff can top the introductions in terms of being annoying. Necrophagia uses introductions that are longer than a minute, and they all are made from either melodies that don't change (again, The Fog is the best example) or mixed samples (they even used one from Disney's Tower of Terror at Harvest Ritual I). The introductions wasted at least ten minutes of my life, some of them being longer than the songs themselves.

I would give 50% to this album, but "To Sleep With The Dead" is a song that easily wins the other 15. The happy, cheesy synthesizer melody does add a crazed atmosphere to the relaxed voice that talks about necrophilia. The song is completely bizarre, and managed to be both scary and uncomfortable to listen to. Thumbs up to Necrophagia here: this song isn’t even metal, but works.

Horror is a common theme in the metal genre, and artist try and make it manifest in a number of different ways, some far more effective than others. Two of the different approaches - gory lyrics and sonic aggression, and synthesized madness and sampling, are among the most effective, and Necrophagia has in the past done the former rather well - with recent addition Mirai Kawashima of Sigh, a band that has utilized synthesizers and samples to great effect in the creation of atmosphere in their albums, Necrophagia gets to combine what is about the best of both worlds, with an EP that is brilliant in its evocation of bizarre, uncomfortable horror.

This release is very tentative and restrained - the band only ever rocks out and picks up the pace on a few places during this release, which makes those sections much more rewarding when we finally get them (see sections of The Fog, Young Burial, the hidden track). Here, the band is on point and plays tightly, without any ego-wanking to cut the mood. Killjoy's harsh vocals are quite memorable in this setting, and one wishes he would use them more often. The melodies in this section are fairly standard, downtuned minor-key riffs which at this point in music's history aren't all that scary...

...Which is why the synth effects are so brilliant in this album. The forboding organ opener to Young Burial seems to be completely unrelated to the rest of the song, but in taking its time to build and layer on the atmosphere, it sets the stage for the remainder of the song, the aformentioned standard horror-ish riffs, to build on the sonic assault. The opening to The Fog, building on John Carpenter's theme from the titular film, is an excellent counterpoint to the song's more upbeat sections, and the synth washes throughout help to layer on the atmosphere. The way the intro synth pulse to Sadako's Curse builds into the full song is similarly brilliant, and one wonders at times if the subliminal insanity techniques used by Mirai and Killjoy on the Enoch side project Graveyard Disturbances (an AMAZING album throughout) weren't tested here first. The use of samples does seem a bit tiresome in the hidden track, considering that two thirds of the song are samples and the other third a brief musical section, but I found, inadvertantly, that the layered progression of the horror narration was quite effective, as cheesy as it was. The most jarring track on the album, pretty much all synth, is To Sleep With The Dead - building on a full synth melody that is EXTREMELY cheesy (and I'm a Mirai fanboy, I bit my tongue really hard writing that), the song is Killjoy's lyrical exposition on the pleasures of necrophilia. Somehow, though, it works - maybe it's the ludicrous counterpoint, hearing such a happy, warm melody along with some clean-voiced babbling about the frigid embrace of a corpse, but whatever it is, listening to this track is EXTREMELY uncomfortable. Success, I'd say.

Not only for more chances to hear Mirai in action, but for the sake of music that will scare the shit out of me, I'm quite glad for the collaboration. Hopefully future releases from both Necrophagia and Sigh will continue the trend of evolving the presence of horror in metal (and who knows, maybe Devil Doll will up the ante again if Mr. Doctor sees fit, which would be a fucking BOON), but this release is a happy little thing; I was never too fond of Necrophagia's heavier stuff with horror in mind, but that, the sampling and the synth work, and the way all these things come together so tactfully, makes it very likely that horror fans and metal fans will be able to dance in the same graveyard for years to come.