Into the Macabre

While my knowledge of Italian metal is certainly limited, I can’t help but think that plenty of bands from the country often had a thing for the occult and similar darker themes – something that started all the way with Death SS and later present in bands such as Mortuary Drape and Opera IX. Necrodeath weren't shying away from this topic, either. While this was certainly not unusual for thrash metal bands - it's Into the Macabre that really brings these occult tales to life - more so than any other albums I can think of.

If you’d ask me what most thrash metal albums remind me of, I’d most likely say something along the lines of ‘’moshing, headbanging and people pretending to play air guitar.’’ The atmosphere of Into the Macabre is much stronger. This has most to do with the way Necrodeath let their riffs breathe – bringing to mind the same riffing tactics not unlike Hell Awaits – see that break in ‘’Sauthenerom’’ where the guitars take a break from bludgeon the listener. Still, at its most intense this album is yet another reminder of the closeness thrash had to death metal in its developmental stages: extreme characteristics get pushed to their limits here, unlike the band’s following-up record which did appear more of a common thrash record and hence a step back in quality. ‘’Agony / The Flag of the Invented Cross’’ features a rollercoaster of riffs where even the blastbeat-driven sections seem to show a vague connection to the madness Trey Azagtoth summoned on Altars of Madness. Despite being unafraid to push boundaries, Necrodeath certainly knew how to do so in a calculated manner though. Nothing feels impulsive or improvised at the last moment here – Into the Macabre certainly has more restraint to it than the early works of say, Sepultura and Vulcano.

It should be instantly notable how Into the Macabre doesn’t sound that extreme considering the production values, which might caught one off guard if you’re used to the firmness of Pleasure to Kill or raw edges of Morbid Visions. Instead the guitar tone has a wonky quality to it, but with a lethal dose of intense riffing, it’s easy to overlook - not to mention the crazy vocal performance of this bloke named Ingo. The venomous wails of this guy are hard to ignore, as if I’m listening to an occult-obsessed freak that does his best to bring imaginary tales alive - with the intentions to freak his listeners out of course.

…And you bet he does. Aside from the usual thrashing intensity that’s present, Into the Macabre avoid the ‘’happily moshing ever after’’ effects most thrash albums possess. ‘’Internal Decay’’ comes close to the thrash/death explosion Sepultura caused circa Beneath the Remains, minus the ‘’walking these dirty streets’’ vibe of that album. Instead, a much eerier aura evokes itself here; as if you’ve just entered one of Dante’s circles of hell and there’s no way back from. Similarly, ‘’At the Mountains of Madness’’ is another creepy tune that allows the listener to prepare for the horror that’s about to get evoked. A tornado of twisted riffing emerges itself between the eerie guitar squeals and I can’t imagine thrash metal sounding more frightening than this. Literally the only peaceful moments include the opener segment of ‘’…Agony / The Flag of the Invented Cross’’ and ‘’The Undead / Agony (Reprise)’’ - a musical box of a child welcoming and ending this deceiving record.

Certainly one of the most overlooked thrash metal albums, Into the Macabre sums up what greatness thrash once possessed before the style watered down. While Necrodeath’s follow up records aren’t exactly my cup of tea, this one is a lovecraftian masterpiece. Hearing it is absolutely mandatory.

Okay, taking a simple look at the cover art of this album and you will most likely tell yourself that it's ugly as hell. Well, you're right, I wouldn't want a patch of this album cover on my battle vest, that's for sure. Alright, despite the ugliness of the front art, what about the music featured inside the album itself? Ah, this is a whole other story, to be quite honest. I didn't expect the music to have such a huge impact at first listen. We have to remember that Necrodeath is from Italy, a country that wasn't known to bring extreme metal music, especially back in the 80s. For people that know some bands from Italy in that particular time will probably cite acts like Bulldozer or Schizo, but due to the shitload of bands from the rest of Europe, these guys were far from the center of people's attention.

Released in 1987, "Into the Macabre" is the first full-length album of Necrodeath, following their 1985 "The Shining Pentagram" demo. The music we can find on this record is pure evil, I mean, the atmosphere is outstanding, it's probably one of the best examples of 80s black metal (No, it's not the same thing as modern black metal you know today). The best way I can compare the content of this album with is basically Kreator with an evil feeling on it. This is not just straightforward thrash metal, the sound is way more heavier and brutal than most of the other similar bands of that time. However, it's quite obvious that they took their influences from the German band, even the singer has a similar voice tone and vocal style as Mille of Kreator (which isn't a bad thing if you ask me anyway).

This album is quite short, unfortunately, with a running time of only 33 minutes. Featuring eight songs averaging the 3-4 minutes of length, I can tell from experience that when playing this album, it doesn't take long to realize that it's already over ... The album kicks-off with the track "...Agony / The Flag of the Inverted Cross", and I may say in a weird fashion. The first ten seconds made me think about a cute sound that is played by a child musical box. Though, soon after, a devastating intro riff kicks in and the drumming blast follows quickly after, just this song is more than enough to convince that these guys are crazy and aggressive as hell. The guitar riffs aren't that unique or innovative, but fit perfectly with the violent vibe heard there. At some degrees, there are tracks that stand out more for their memorable passages, such as "Internal Decay", in which the chorus offers an oustanding incantation feeling. There we also have the most popular Necrodeath song, called "Mater Tenebrarum", this is probably the most interesting track on the atmosphere side, just by the sublime introduction and evil growling chorus. The most "thrashy" song is certainly "Necrosadist", with its classic song structure that we often see in the thrash metal world, even with catchiness. The track "At the Mountains of Madness" shows how creative Necrodeath were at the time, the songwriting is brillant and they knew how to balance the infernal speed and put some melodic passages in it too. The album ends with "The Undead / Agony (Reprise)", which is like the second part of the first song I guess, the funny part of it is that it ends exactly the same way as it began on the first track, with the cute music.

In general, this record delivers very well in terms of brutality, the tracks all possess at least a killer riff that stands out from the others. The production work is also pretty good. I have no issues at all with this whole record quality, it sounds exactly or even better than a typical 80s extreme metal album should sound like. The instrumental work is really cool, but not that impressive on the technical side obviously (solos and stuff), the drums are totally insane though, but like I said before, the unique atmosphere and evil vibe is the highlight of this whole album. Lyrics-wise, it's pretty easy to tell that their concept is based on the occult and satanic stuff, like a lot of other bands did at that time as well.

So, do I recommend this album? Absolutely! Fans of German thrash or people that are in quest of some underground old school 80s evil and brutal thrash metal will be very pleased by this record. Even with its short length, it's way more than enough to bang your head pretty hard on this one. This is a true classic of the genre and totally deserves its cult status, probably the best 80s metal release from Italy from my point of view.

Since its comeback in 1999, the here presented formation has released eight regular studio albums. But during their first phase, the Italians published only two full-lengths. Probably due to this disequilibrium, Necrodeath is perceived as a pure thrash metal commando. But this is a wrong perception. The band started as a bastard of black and thrash metal, with emphasis on the dark metier. Their debut demonstrated this in an impressive way. These four guys wanted to be evil, come hell or high water. Fortunately, they were predominantly successful.

"Into the Macabre" possessed this certain wildness which is typical for debuts of extreme metal maniacs. Thrash metal riffs met dragging guitar lines. This mix generated a sinister aura. The band was not afraid to offer blastbeat-like drum attacks, but drummer Peso mastered slower rhythms as well. As the song titles already indicated, the lyrics dealt with the usual black metal topics. A lot of demons, blasphemous creatures and poisoned souls showed up. One might call this kind of lyrics slightly stupid, but this would be unfair. The zeitgeist of the eighties asked for this sort of poetry. By the way, Necrodeath offered some Latin lines, a relatively unique feature and a good idea, especially for an Italian band. Lead singer Ingo showed a solid and passionate performance. Some vocal effects were not fully convincing, for example the excessively demonic chorus of "Mater Tenebrarum". But as mentioned earlier, the guys from sunny Italy were focused on being evil, irrespective of the price.

With regard to the fact that this output was a debut, all songs surprised with a mature configuration. The proportion between straightforward aggressive eruptions and fairly sophisticated sections was well balanced. Therefore, the album offered some really exciting tunes. The quality level was unexpectedly high during the entire playtime. Nevertheless, I want to pick out two tracks in order to provide you with more detailed information. "Mater Tenebrarum" left its mark because of its slightly chaotic atmosphere while presenting hellish guitar lines and a chorus with devastating riffs. "Graveyard of the Innocents" begun with a morbid guitar line. A shrill scream of Ingo led to the verse, before a sudden break transformed the mid-tempo track into a stormy black metal piece. Maybe these two songs did not mark the obvious highlights, but they represented good examples for the raging force of the group. Needles to say that commercial considerations had not played any role during the songwriting process.

In view of the relatively transparent and powerful sound, the vinyl (surprisingly a gatefold album) did not disappoint me. Quite the opposite, I really liked it, not at least because of the fact that it was honoured by a scathing review in the German mainstream magazine called Metal Hammer. As an extreme underground band, you had to have bad criticisms in this medium in order to get an authentic image. It was a kind of accolade for every radical horde of the underworld. To cut a long story short, the only negative detail was the amateurish posing of three band members on the back cover. But I do not think that anybody really takes notice of unimportant things like this.

Like a phoenix that reborn from the ashes, the new blasphemous creation of Ingo, Paolo, Peso and Claudio is called Necrodeath after having disbanded the older Ghostrider band. The year is the 1985 and with the first demo on cassette, that The Shining Pentagram, Necrodeath immediately showed to everyone (in Italy and abroad) their primitive, occult and devastating power. The tracks on that cassette were a concentrate of fury and darkness, a primordial, embryonic form of black/thrash with a fuzzy and unclear production. The demo sold lots of copies and soon it turned to be a wanted piece for the avid collectors of rarities. Few months after, a small label from Liguria (Italy), the Nightmare Productions, decided to give the band a change to record something new, this time on full length format and in 1987 the majestically dark Into The Macabre came out from the dark to revolutionise the Italian panorama.

Eight tracks were more than sufficient to destroy anything in violence in Italy at the time. If Bulldozer were more Motörhead influenced and Schizo a bit more death/thrash oriented, Necrodeath really brought something unmatchable in sheer murkiness and devastation. What we can find here is the most representative example of extremism in Italy during the 80s in my opinion. They were influenced by everything extreme at the period and especially by Slayer, Kreator, Bathory and Venom. This lethal mixture of extreme styles collides perfectly with the typical occult atmosphere of the Italian bands in that period and there’s nothing you can do before being annihilated by furious proto-blast beats, black screams and massive guitars riffs.

On Into The Macabre, Necrodeath wasn’t that technical like it would have been on the following Fragments of Insanity, but the songs are always well-developed in their fury and we can notice extreme well-played tempo changes in a dark cave infested by crunchy and dark songs from hell. However, this album is so famous in the underground mostly for its revolutionary brutality in a period in which the extremism was in a continue change because many were experimenting the blends of genres and almost everything was to be discovered. Many foreign musicians like Cronos, Euronymous and Dan Lilker praised this album as a very important one for the future evolution of black metal genre. Since this, the importance of Into The Macabre is undeniable but now, let’s open the door of this entrance to hell and prepare because you won’t return to normality too easily.

“…Agony/The Flag of the Inverted Cross” is the opener and the carillon sound is for the introduction. Ten seconds after hell’s unleashed: the constant tempo changes by Peso support schizophrenic black/thrash riffs, culminating in some primordial blast beats followed by more doomy moments and blasting restarts in which Ingo is a real animal for the screams. His sick, twisted and terrifically original timbre accompany us through more spoken parts where the growl is preponderant, through totally black screams and high pitched whistles (if you loved the ones by Dani Filth, listen to these ones and prepare to cum for pleasure, considering that there was no possibility for Necrodeath to use a sort of artificial touch).

“At the Mountains of Madness” follows with some more mid-paced moments by the beginning to turn into an up tempo in which a maelstrom of riffs and occult visions take dominion over our imagination. Beasts awaking, horror scenarios and darkness surround this album. The production exalts the snare drum beats but the guitars are louder when they put out those terrifying lead lines to let the atmosphere grow, especially during the down tempo parts, just before the obliterating restarts. “Southenerom” has incredibly well-played switching of different tempo parts even if the verse is on total blast beats. The riffs are always simple in style for the palm muting but the atmosphere they create has something desecrating and occult inside like few, few others.

“Mater Tenebrarum” features the very first clean arpeggios with an echoing sound to be darker, while when the electric guitars enter, there’s a growth in intensity till reaching the verse in which the band plays definitely faster. Once again the chorus is well-stuck and audible, featuring a blend of different styled vocals just before the growl section where the Latin spoken part is supported by distorted arpeggios. This is representative of how much Necrodeath was ahead at the time in terms of originality and style. “Necrosadist” has a fake beginning because you think it will be mid-paced for the rest of the length. Well, you are wrong because it’s the most brutal and in your face track of the entire album, like if the other ones weren’t already little pieces of hell. The drums rolls in the middle section introduce an awesome screams by Ingo, confirming once more his greatness.

“Internal Decay” continues the way to destruction but this time we can even find some more melodic (in the occult sense) clean arpeggios under more mid-paced parts. By the way, they are just small parts, among several faster riffs and tempo sections. That choice was very important and we can find more thrash metal moments even if everything (from the production to the way the band plays the instruments) is surely more black metal. The attitude was more than right. A special mention should be given for the bass work before I forgot, because its style is essential, bare-bone but also incredibly massive and metallic, sustaining every kind of atmosphere or tempo change.

Finally with “Graveyard of the Innocent” we can enjoy some mid-paced moments. However, don’t think that by this choice Necrodeath erase or run out of violence. You poor human, you won’t sleep well after having listened to this one. The fog arrives through the tombstones and the suffering souls of the innocent speak through the Ingo’s voice, passing through screams and raging parts. The second fraction of this song is faster and perfect to introduce the last seal of this masterpiece, that relentless “The Undead/ Agony (Reprise). The blast beats are huge while we can find also a great, fast bass drums work by Peso. The growls are perfectly melted down with the screams in several parts, especially on the refrain. The few more mid-paced moments are always and I mean always full of riffs in order to sustain the brutal soul of this unbelievable band. The dark notes of the carillon end this album the way it was started.

In 33 minutes Necrodeath threw the bases for a new form of metal. It was necessary for them to play for 33 minutes in order to give something new, fresh and original to a panorama in constant change. The few pearls we had in our Italian underground made history and the same, maybe stupid or boring, question incessantly runs through my mind: What if they were born in another country…?