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Necrophagist > Onset of Putrefaction > Reviews
Necrophagist - Onset of Putrefaction

Onset of Perfection - 100%

Hames_Jetfield, January 19th, 2022

Necrophagist - one of the most influential bands in the field of modern (i.e. maximally refined), technical death metal, not without reason causing very extreme opinions among the metal community: from completely negative to insanely enthusiastic. Well, I would classify myself somewhere in the latter category, although it's something like a paradox, because "on every day" I am more into brutality and atmosphere than attention to every detail or showing off with absurd skills (which happens in such a style). However, in the Necrophagist's style, these things are different. On "Onset Of Putrefaction" nothing is a matter of coincidence, there is no mindless showing off of technique or overdone arrangements.

Muhammed Suiçmez's "solo" debut in the form of this album is an absolute hit (the rest of the official line-up were not available on this session)! The degree of twist on it's simply captivating and can give you complexes at almost every step, and as if that was not enough, "Onset..." does not lack brutality, sensible melodies and - simply - excellently written compositions. You don't have to listen carefully here to completely go crazy with the genius of this music. It's enough to listen to the opening "Full Body Autopsy" and "To Breath In A Casket", and even this will give quite a sensible insight into Muhammed's compositional genius. And then it doesn't get any worse. With the songs like "Extreme Unction", "Mutilate The Stillborn", "Fermented Offal Discharge" or "Culinary Hyperversity" there is really hard to reintegrate. Absolutely all of them (not mentioned too!) knock down with superhuman technique, decent low growl of Suiçmez (strongly in style of brutal death metal), well-balanced dynamics and - ironically - a very "human" approach to such a style. Well, the drum programming does not bother!

"Onset Of Putrefaction" is therefore a real gem of technical death metal, necessary to check. Yes, not everyone will like this kind of music (and the question which will like?), although it must be admitted that Muhammed Suiçmez's idea for death metal was phenomenal and not without reason found a huge, often not worth discussing, followers.

Originally on: https://subiektywnymetal.blogspot.com/2022/01/necrophagist-onset-of-putrefaction-1999.html

Unique pedagogical death metal document - 93%

Annable Courts, December 11th, 2020

Muhammed Suiçmez locks his lonesome self up in a studio, with his guitar, mic and a computer and records one of the most unique and influential metal works of all time. In hindsight it seems unbelievable 'Onset of Putrefaction' came out in 1999. In both musical style and production, it feels distinctly anachronistic, and sure enough, it turned out to be a prefiguring beacon for almost the whole upcoming modern tech-death scene. Before the turn of the millennium, technical death metal bands like Suffocation were producing music that essentially oozed with chaotic energy and brutal heaviness, infused with hi-gain profusion and ravaging drums and vocals. But despite the technical intricacies, those bands were irrevocably organic still. Necrophagist here took tech-death to the next step with a style far more clinical, cold, and nearly exceedingly precise.

Where tech-death typically had a propensity towards a certain meticulousness, 'Onset' is outright asepticized perfectionism bordering on the musical equivalent of an obsessive germophobia. The programmed drums add an extra dynamic of robotic exactness and inhuman placidity to the tracks and instead of sounding fake and a setback, they seem to help the album achieve that sort of modern pathological death metal edge. The guitars are fed a lower amount of gain that is conventional for any extreme metal, as the riffs feel more mobile and detailed than on contemporary releases of the time, again constituting an area of distinction and modernity. The concern for the potentially overly sanitized feel of the album, losing the original dirt of death metal, is usually discarded quickly after realizing the outrageous quality of the material track after track. The stereotypical low growl vocals are merely a conveyor of semantic meaning and the rhythmic instrument at the foreground of the mix, and they are neither a hindrance nor a particular advantage for the music and pass the standard death metal test.

The album is laudably balanced and judiciously paced, nearly flawlessly, like it had been examined under a microscope after each modification and reworked until every track felt like an optimal version of itself with nothing but efficiency from part to part. You'd be hard-pressed to find a section anywhere on this 35min album that objectively qualified as filler content. On the point of concise and efficient composition, the songs were interestingly given choruses, and not that this would be a novelty for the style but the choruses reflect the consistency of the songs at large and foster a terribly catchy drive to them, like the band have reconciled authentic death metal extremeness with a more traditional aspect of song seamlessly. Any listener of this record will hear the chorus play in their minds "To breathe in a casket" when reading that phrase, and the same with "Mutilate the stillborn" as just another example. The choruses are highly musical rather than loud death metal rackets, and instead of using synths or lead voice hooks like mainstream music would, Suiçmez uses his voice as the tone-setting metronome over complex yet mnemonic guitar patterns that simply work.

The riffs all squeeze the most out of scales like diminished arpeggio, whole-tone or chromatic moods as they make them fun by processing them into fluid, rhythmically enticing parts with the odd natural harmonic or stop as punctuation to the clever syntax. In that sense this album is something like a pedagogical death metal document and it would easily be one of the best available works to procure a novice listener a taste for this style. It makes death metal fun, but not in a commercial Dethklok-like type of way. This is still very much the real thing, only re-imagined and refined by an ingenious and undeniably gifted individual somewhere in Germany. Just lending an ear to 'Culinary Hyperversity' and its brutal energy should be enough to quiet doubts over the exact nature of this stuff.

The solos. An area that often splits fans of the record to two sides is the soloing. The ones saying "aye" point to the impeccable incorporation and execution of neoclassical lead guitar work into tech-death. The ones saying "nay" feel the solos all sound the same with minor environment changes. In all honesty, one could easily make the argument the album suffers from having been -too- influential, where some listeners might be guilty of practicing a revisionist undertaking of this as what it originally displayed here has become a cliché for the whole genre later, but was new and inventive back in '99. It surely became somewhat gimmicky by the band's second album, but it was inspired and authentic here where it all started.

One such section that particularly stands out is the whole instrumental middle section on 'Culinary Hyperversity'. Suiçmez shows he can produce genuinely dark atmospheres amidst the hectic trigger-happy frenzy. It starts off plunging the track into a mid-paced harmonized arpeggio articulation trading off with a perplexing lead phrase pushed into the background heavy with delay, all glowing with a ghostly aura and drenched in a quiet terror, like a cold and detached introspective digression. The solo that follows is poignant with drama and a climactic passion rarely heard on any album for the style, culminating in that recurring lead leitmotiv introduced with a dissonant bend crying out with existential affliction.

How often could you confidently assert every single song is totally distinct from the others on a given death metal record, the way radio songs are distinct from one another ? This isn't a band that thought it found the magic formula and overused it repeatedly to crap out a same-sounding mundane trite fest. There's no cheating on this. There are no shortcuts. It's all built-from-scratch material from an individual who obviously made it a point to be self-critical and refused the temptation of self-indulgence after putting a few pieces together successfully. This album doesn't settle for being interesting on just one level. It aimed for a higher purpose from the start, and truth be told it achieved its most ambitious goal of being 8 different tracks with a totally different vibe, that were catchy as hell for each and every last one. This is one that simply cannot be overlooked, for its rare intrinsic quality and massive influential momentum going forward, and is certainly one of the few truly great death metal albums of all time, with the particularity of transcending the genre and being a potential interest for the non death metal specialist.

Annable Courts - http://antichristmagazine.com/review-necrophagist-onset-of-putrefaction-noise-solution-records/

Overwhelmingly Ingenious - 100%

EzraBlumenfeld, January 31st, 2018

While most of the world of metal waits for Necrophagist's third album that will most likely never come, the less hopeful of us are left listening to the small but powerful legacy Muhammed Suicmez's brainchild has already left behind. While the somewhat-legendary technical death metal band's second (and probably final) full-length album Epitaph was more accessible and easy on the ears, it's Suicmez's one-man debut release Onset of Putrefaction that really wins over the heart of the true tech death listener.

In terms of sound quality, this album is damn near perfect. Every note is perfectly audible while not losing any of the huge sound associated with the genre. The bass stands out well in the mix, yet is not overwhelming. The guitars are percussive and chuggy in the rhythm sections, with beautifully clear sweep-picked neo-classical leads. The drums are extremely technical, although they were (at least on the original version) programmed using a drum machine. Suicmez is also quick to let loose a monstrous, throaty guttural vocal performance throughout the album's duration, which fit the music perfectly, perhaps never better than at 00:17 of album opener "Foul Body Autopsy." The lyrics are extremely brutal and disgusting: filled with verses about digging up, eating, and fornicating with dead bodies (as the band's name suggest) and the like, it is reminiscent of Carcass' early grind period.

Each song is a merciless onslaught of splintering technicality and brutality. From the groovy harmonics of "Extreme Unction" to the headbangable off-time chug of "Intestinal Incubation" to the Yngwie Malmsteen-like shred in the intro and outro of "Mutilate the Stillborn" and beautiful solos amidst the sickening growls of "Fermented Offal Discharge," "Advanced Corpse Tumor," and "Culinary Hyperversity," this album is the metal version of an artistic masterpiece, comprising nearly eight years of compositional material. However, rife with complex time signature changes and exotic scale runs, this is not an album for the weak-minded listener. Nearly every song has an extremely technical, mind-bogglingly overwhelming neo-classical solo to contrast with the otherwise ceaseless violence of the rest of the song. The riffs will test your limits of perception, defying common music theory or conventional song structure.

This album is a flawless technical death metal masterpiece. While maybe not as commercially successful and more lyrically controversial then its predecessor, Onset of Putrefaction is a must-listen for any metalheads who haven't gotten a chance to check out Necrophagist yet. I highly recommend it to anyone who would like to listen to a nonstop, complex, and well thought-out record. Every note is perfectly chosen, every lead run recorded to optimal quality. It truly is an unmatched album in terms of technicality and sound quality combined.

Death Metal Goes Droidsville - 80%

autothrall, April 13th, 2014

Onset of Putrefaction is an album I am unashamed to cite as one of the most important of the technical death metal medium; only its significance is not necessarily for all the right reasons. An iconic work of frenetic and clinical, unfeeling and technique-driven energy, Muhammed Suiçmez' Necrophagist debut served as a blueprint for the fashionable formulas of mid-list US death metal, which would in turn inspire a number of the more extreme examples of melodic death, metalcore in the later 90s, and later the more instrumentally adept deathcore acts, who were at the time teenagers and pretty impressionable that the high level of technique, or really 'wank' present here was the underlying truth of extreme metal on the whole. Now, I'm not saying I dislike Onset of Putrefaction, as you'll read I still enjoy this from time to time, since it seemed to me the natural extension of surgical death metal masterworks like Mallevs Maleficarvum, Necroticism or those first few Suffocation outings; but there can be no question that much of its proficiency-bound appeal comes at the expense of the genuine malevolence and atmosphere one can associate with the classics of even the most ardently technical death metal.

There really isn't much about this one that I could dub 'original', but it's how Necrophagist assembles its prowess into workable songs that helped it to stand out among a lot of the more boorish, long winded and dissonant death metal of its day. The medical glossary lyrics, common here if not sovereign, are straight lifted from Carcass, the level of alien detachment akin to Demilich (I don't for a second think Muhammed gave a shit about the lyrics or concepts behind the music), and the playing is purely exhibitionist, a bold play to conquer the imaginations of the easily distracted or attention deficient who want their music played. Onset of Putrefaction is essentially technical shred metal festooned in growls and precise, punchy backing chords that moor it in the surgery ward, but why it works is because this particular player is so fantastic at meting out some genuine variation, and transforming what might otherwise be an impenetrably flashy experience into some actual songwriting chops that keep the Guitar World brown-nose nerds proboscis-deep in excrement, while at the same time dazzling the progressive death metal fan who grew increasingly accustomed to tighter production values and musical aesthetics similar to what a computer might come up with if you fed it a few dozen death metal records from the 90s alongside some Yngwie Malmsteen stuff.

That's right, I said it works, because the notes Suiçmez lays out here are endlessly well-executed even if he's not the author of the techniques...he implements a LOT of them, and though there's a general 'sameness' about the tunes, it's largely through the production and lyrical similarities and the hammering thrashiness which could be attributed more to the 'rhythm' guitars. Which are themselves more technically advanced than many of the leads shat out by Necrophagist's peers! Endless strings of arpeggios, sweeps, harmonies and other digitized classical picking styles are fed into a machine of modern aggression, a factory of chops that I promise should not grow boring unless you have an absolute fucking hate-on for everything even tangentially related to the notion of 'technical death metal'. If death metal does not exist for you beyond Mortal Throne of Nazarene, World Without God and Warmaster then this is most definitely not for fucking you! But, you see, I like it, I LIKE that Muhammed pressed upon, if not fully pushed the envelope, well before a lot of followers took the same sounds and diluted them ad nauseum into 'wank of the week'. It still might be partly Necrophagist's fault, but you don't pick your fans. It's not At the Gates' fault that the breakdown in "Slaughter of the Soul" birthed the aspirations of a billion shitty melodeath-metalcore hybrids, and it's not Necrophagist's fault that a bunch of fellow guitar hero nerds couldn't think for themselves.

I'm sure a lot of people had a problem with the drum programming, but really this sort of methodic, fast and emotionless material deserves no less than the most robotic percussion available. It doesn't come across as industrialized, noisy, or experimental, just pretty thin and fast and unobtrusive to what matters most: the guitars. The same could be said for the bass, it slides silkily and stealthily as a support for the hectic rhythm patterns without losing its identity entirely as a 'presence'. The vocals are percussive, coy little growls with a little guttural sustain, but the syllabic patterns being spat forth are once again just a plebeian balance against the acrobatic picking that won't cease once across the 35 minutes. But Muhammed is such a refined player (in terms of technique, not feeling) that nothing else really matters...the appropriate way to approach this is much how you'd approach a Shrapnel shred-fest, for the exhilaration that there are humans out there this damn good at instrumental proficiency, even if your preference is to turn on the radio and listen to another block of The Doors. It's not even remotely a masterpiece, running afoul of perfection due to the fact that its a one trick pony, even though that trick has a thousand variations here.

I used to like this a little more than I do today, but it still holds up; so when you're out there listening to one of the many albums it inspired (one of which is Radiophobia from fellow Germans Cytotoxin, who thoroughly cultivate these sorts of aesthetics), try to remember that one extremely capable person was responsible for overseeing a large chunk of the ensuing genre. Yes, he went there, and he went hard. I can imagine bands like Jason Suecof's Capharnaum hearing this and weeping into their hands, to be so utterly beaten to the proverbial punch. Suiçmez can make you feel pretty bad about your technical chops, if that's what you're chasing, but that doesn't make this album any less entertaining for its pugilistic, unapologetic prowess.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Clinical Incisions - 95%

Ogremace, March 29th, 2009

We humans tend to like things that are simple, or perhaps more accurately like to make things simple, especially when they’re not. Thus we love to attribute trends and movements and ideas to a single person or a certain date even when there’s clear evidence that the situation is much more detailed and much less stark than that attribution would imply. We talk about Death as being the first death metal band, Suffocation as inventing guttural brutality, Slaughter of the Soul or Cowboys from Hell as “killing” death or thrash metal and so on. All such claims contain an element of truth, and not one to be ignored, but they do as much disservice as they do service, obscuring the wealth of an underground music scene, ignoring the other musicians who helped create a sound or blaming a band for the way others were inspired by their music. But, sometimes things are just about as simple as they seem and we can point to one place, one time, one man and say with certainty what it was that he did.

You may be surprised to know that Necrophagist, in 1999, had been a band for 7 years already. Their legacy is inexorably linked with the new millennium, but yes, they began before Nile, before Covenant was released and before Cryptopsy had recorded a single album. And yet in 1999 there really wasn’t a band: Muhammed Suiçmez was the only remaining musician and he took it upon himself to release the album he had been working on for years, recording guitar, bass and vocals and arranging drum tracks through a program. The resulting disc, Onset of Putrefaction, effectively inaugurated the sub-genre of technical death metal as we know it today, a genre which took off to become one of death metal’s biggest and which still bears a striking resemblance to the 35 minutes of material on this record.

Now, there was already, of course, musical proficiency in death metal. Bands like Cynic and Atheist had brought a level of intricacy and musicianship to extreme metal as early as 1989 and the likes of Cryptopsy and Suffocation had continued that trend with their unblinking speed and proliferation of notes and riffs. All four bands, and others, could be credited as progenitors of tech-death. But Onset offered something different, something resembling the virtuosity and musicality of much older kinds of music and which had yet to penetrate the fortress of death metal. Muhammed, first of all, is and was arguably the best and most precise guitarist in death metal and that was the foundation for his method of elevating and advancing the music. There were other great soloists, of course, but not many, and none of them integrated their leads into the music with the lack of restraint Muhammed did. His playing is as reminiscent of a Paganini “perpetual motion” as it is of a death metal song. Whereas earlier technical offerings had mostly simply been quantitative increases in the speed, intricacy and precision of death metal riffing, Necrophagist changed the nature of the riffing itself, focusing on the single lead guitar, a cleaner tone, dynamism and a certain acrobatic quality, enlisting arpeggios and scale runs, hat tips to classical music, in favor of distorted harmonies and rhythmic chugging. It must also be remembered that, while this album didn’t appear until 1999, some of the songs were around as early as 1995, and as such predated Pierced from Within and None So Vile. While it may not have been a totally new kind of music it was a decisive change from the status quo and, most importantly with regards to its legacy and impact, it was very quickly taken up by droves of new musicians as the way to fulfill the promise of heavy music.

In order to make this alteration possible, or perhaps discernable, Muhammed had to present his guitar in a different way, though this difference was, in a sense, a return to the past. Even by the middle ’90’s death metal guitar tone had become robust and thick, full of mid and low values and devoid of the high-strung, trebly, caustic tone that death metal had borrowed, with its own twist, from classic metal. Where Iron Maiden and Judas Priest had had their guitar melodies soar majestically over the rest of the music, death metal had adapted that into a fiendish, acerbic tone to go along with its pummeling. That acidic guitar tone, though, was quickly subsumed into the depths of the heaviness that came to dominate the music. Necrophagist’s cold, clear leads bring to mind the surgeon’s scalpel more than a demon’s bite, and they allow for many more notes to be divulged in a short span as well as a kind of mechanical, digital quickness to be unleashed, something that was, at the time, entirely new. This unique guitar tone, which may have simply been a necessity as much as an attempt to revolutionize, created a new kind of unsettling feeling, one that was more malicious than ghoulish, more shiny than grimy, more technological than primordial, more real than fantasized, and represented the final piece of the innovation that this album was.

What makes this album all the more intriguing is that, despite laying out the tenets of technical death metal, it nonetheless retained a large amount of the character of earlier death metal than the albums that followed it and developed that sound to the extreme form we know today. There are pure burners here, like opener “Foul Body Autopsy” and “Mutilate the Stillborn”, each of which, despite offering up some blistering guitar trimmings, feature crunchy and bombastic riffs and don’t waste any time between them. Then there’s the serpentine “To Breathe in a Casket”, with its rhythmic crescendos, looping buildups and absolutely funky and smashing breakdown riff. It’s so catchy and creepy and unlike anything else I’ve heard before this point – and there’s no solo! All throughout there are great chugging and hammering riffs, something that has been steadily diminished in the field as time has gone by. And the album overall, though it features a guitar sound that as in many ways new, still displays some of the dirty, crunchy, fuzzy sound that has certainly been lost since then. Indeed, this album’s follow up, 2003’s Epitaph, had not a trace of that tone which once defined death metal. Though that album has, in the time since, come to be the more praised and appreciated – as well as loathed – for its complete and unflinching devotion to fingering and virtuosity, and of course for the excellent quality of its music, this album has always had more charm, more warmth and that kind of home-cooked satisfaction that comes from being entrenched in the grinding confines of death metal tonality. For better or worse, tech-death blew right past this confluence of events in search of the pinnacle of clinical hygenics and precision.

Still, Muhammed’s strength is undeniably in the absurd and amazing portions of the album where he let loose all the prodigious skill available to him. Of the eight songs here five have impressive and daunting solos, three of which are simply monumental. “Culinary Hyperversity”, in part due to its necrophagic lyrics, might be the creepiest song on the album, an example of a surgical sound and culinary theme converging perfectly. The song is built on quirky and abrupt guitar licks dispersed through the riffing and climaxes in a terrifying solo, the immaculate cleanliness of which conjures up the same polished barbarism as the rest of the effort. “Advanced Corpse Tumor” is the most imposing song, coming in over five minutes in length and unloading a bevy of lurching riffs and scampering technical sequences before opening up into a two part solo, sweeping through stunted arpeggios before double-timing along with a wonderful and spirited riff underneath, all before the two-thirds mark. Finally, “Fermented Offal Discharge” tears through a series of absolutely frantic riffs, settles on a kind of twitching groove and then builds back up into the most dynamic, diverse and refined solo of the album, consisting of a series of graceful themes underpinned by an evolving riff, then taking off in a succession of agitated, fearful bursts, much like the pleas of a man imploring his captor to spare him a grisly end. These solos, all over one minute in length, really become part of the songs’ compositions and help to develop ideas in and musical traits of those songs, and while they can be disparagingly called “pointless arpeggios” they are, as in a long tradition of music, simply a technical and detailed take on the development of melody. This kind of refinement and thoroughness in melody was nearly non-existent in death metal, which had created its own harmonic language and melodic atmosphere but had not yet turned to face those attributes directly. Muhammed, on the other hand, left the musical content as it were but incorporated just that kind of virtuosic attention, in the process giving us technical death metal.

Of course, as impressive as it is to take on the task of creating an album single handedly, it has its limitations. It would not unreasonable to think, given the group’s sophomore record, that Muhammed would view this album as incomplete or hindered. That second album’s labyrinthine bass lines, diverse drum beats and profusion of counterpoint, not to mention its music-historical references and increased complexity of riff and structure, hint at even greater aspirations from the band’s creative force, and we can surmise that some of that might have made it onto this record given more time and more favorable circumstances. It’s similarly easy to be unimpressed, in general, by the programmed, lifeless drumming, one and the same drum fill in every slot and typically unadventurous bass. But it must be remembered that this album came at a transitional moment, when the rest of the band had left and those who would constitute the revived band were not yet present. Perhaps it was this transitional characteristic that allowed Onset to be a transition for death metal as well, a moment between the established style, which, like it or not, was on it’s way out, and the yet unseen future, full of a musical awareness and desire to refine that had not yet come to the fore. If so, we forgive it its flaws not only for all that it nonetheless did well but also for its spirit of eagerness and strength to focus its energy on one idea, one great idea, even at the cost of some others.

Originally written for www.leprousgarden.com

George Fisher and Micheal Romeo had a love child - 95%

Idontsuckdick, December 28th, 2008

This whole album basically sounds like a very technical version of Cannibal Corpse with various neo-classical sounding solos in between. So if neither of those styles satisfies your needs, walk away my friend. However if you like that stuff then step right up because this is the album for you. For the most part, Muhhamed’s vocals sound a lot like George Fisher (AKA Corpsegrinder). Then all the riffs are very technical, fast, and backed up by fast blast beats. The bass also has a very high standpoint on this album. It is always very audible and plays some stuff most bass players could not come close to playing.

For the most part, this entire production was written and recorded by Muhhamed. But I see no problem with that, because the music is really good. You won’t find simplicity that bores you and repeats itself all the time. There are always mini fills thrown between riffs that are actually entertaining and goofy. You can tell he tried to purposely make it really brutal, and it actually sounds good instead of being lame, because I’m sure Muhhamed knew most people don’t take that kind of stuff too seriously. But in the end it is still very entertaining, and can be funny at some points.

The music works as a good bring me up, there are no slow boring build ups, and it all just pops out of nowhere and keeps a fast steady pace. In fact the beginning of the album just starts put of nowhere and has an intense build up until it quickly leads right into the next song, and from there it is very well written and consistently powerful.

The production sounds surprisingly good for a first full length. Every instrument is audible, there is no fuzzy sound, and the vocals are projected and rest on top of the instruments nicely. In fact I’m surprised how loud and thick the vocals are coming out of such a small man. Plus I am surprised at his capability to play such intricate riffs while doing the vocals.

It is hard to talk about each song individually because they all sound the same. You can tell which song is which but for the most part the style of the riffs are the same and follow the same pattern. But my favorite song is Culinary Hyperversity. It has a really cool and fast solo. There are also some cool melodies during the verse, and the blast beats make you want to bob your head. Another good song is Fermented Offal Discharge. It just opens with a cool sweep then into a really heavy riff followed by a quick but awesome bass solo. The rest of the song has brutal riffs, cool vocals, and an extensive solo.

The solos are absolutely incredible on this album. Muhhamed displays great capability of playing intense solos. There is always a build up instead of just popping out of nowhere and playing super fast and ending out of nowhere. They are just very climatic. Then when they do get fast they shred the night away at intricate timing and keys.

I say get this album if you are a fan of the more heavy and brutal style metal. It is always loud and fast and gets the blood pumping. You will really enjoy listening to the solos, as most bands don’t have the capability to incorporate such intelligent solos in with heavy music. Try to ignore the lyrical themes though, they are kind of cheesy.

Arpeggios From Hell! - 60%

Wra1th1s, May 3rd, 2008

Or 'A Most Merciless Slaughter of Kittens'

Muhammad Suicmez folks! What a guy! He is perhaps the most technical death metal guitarist ever. Yes, he even kicks Schuldiner's ass at shredding! I mean put on any song he has done and you will be hard-pressed to distinguish between 'solo' and 'not-solo.' I swear, I can hear the kittens dying with every note.

Let's get things out of the way first. This album, was not recorded by a band. Necrophagist had already split up by this point, but Muhammad is Necrophagist in the same way Chuck is Death. Also there's no drummer in this album, he uses a much improved (or so I'm told) drum machine on the 2004 re-release but it still sounds awkward. While we're at it, I'll just come right up and say it: Muhammad CANNOT play normal riffs. He must play riffs that have arpeggios and assorted meedley-meedleys, but mostly arpeggios. It's like a biological impossibility for him. If I remember correctly, "To Breathe In A Casket (did I mention his horrible lyrics?)" has a verse riff that is all pinch harmonics.

So, on a purely technical perspective, this album is spectacular. Yet, on pure enjoyability, the album is very lacking. Horrible lyrics, even by death metal standards, aplenty. The songs are just a vehicle for his shredding, they all seem to run together and that is bad unless you're making a concept album. I don't recall specific songs unless I look at the titles.

The production is your typical tech-death fare. Clean as hell with the guitars and drums up-front. Oh and that drum machine sounds very fake to me, It makes me wonder how bad the original drum machine is, although the drum machine serves its purpose. The 2004 edition features tracks from Necrophagist's demo and it sounds much better because an actual band recorded it.

Get it? Oh sure, why not? It is fun, if nothing else.

Muhammed's Masterpiece - 95%

tiggity, March 9th, 2008

Like most people, the first song I heard from Necrophagist was "Stabwound", and also like most people, I was instantly smitten. However, as great of a CD that Epitaph is, not enough people realize what a tremendous achievement Onset of Putrefaction is. Seriously folks, let's not have a repeat of DragonForce and have the band get crazily popular solely because of the newer album. The music is splendid, easily one of the best one-man projects I've ever heard, and the sound is quite clear and crisp, accentuating every instrument and giving them each the proper treatment they deserve.

First and foremost, the guitarwork on this album is tremendous, nothing less than what many of us would expect from Muhammed Suicmez. His infamous technicality is in no short supply on this album, with each song having its own very unique and instantly recognizable tune, from the dizzying stop-go time signatures of "Intestinal Incubation" to the seamless mixture of dazzling sweeps and Slayer-esque chugging and shredding in "Culinary Hyperversity". Mr. Suicmez is truly a musically well-rounded man, hails.

Second, I was shocked to discover that this album was composed and played entirely by Muhammed. We all know that he's a fantastic guitar player and vocalist, but since he's obviously also a competent bassist, and knows exactly what sort of drumming a song needs, I envied him even more. Other one-person albums I've heard seem to clearly portray the artist's strong point, i.e. he's a guitarist by nature, so the guitars are great and the drums just sound like AC/DC with double-bass. This however is not the case here. As expected the guitar and vocals are great, but also the bass and drum tracks sound almost identical to the members of the future Epitaph line-up. If I were to give Epitaph to a Necrophagist novice, and then proceed to let him listen to "Extreme Unction", I'd be willing to bet money that they would never guess Hannes and Stefan weren't there yet.

The final pleasant surprise for me on this CD was, quite simply, how well Muhammed could speak English, even at this early point in the band's career. While he may be talking about eating dead people and disemboweling fetuses freshly ripped from the mother's womb, and other family-friendly subjects, Muhammed still manages to show that he's not just some dunderhead who knows how to scream "Fuck" and "Kill" and "Guts" in English. Seriously, who would expect some Turkish guy named Muhammed to be able to write lines like "Stagnant mass awaits me deep in the gloom", and "Fumes are penetrating, I am eructating"? I was born and raised here, and I didn't even know what the hell "eructating" meant.

All in all, this is a very solid album from an equally solid band, and unfortunately it's the album that seems to be overlooked in favor of the newer release, a prime example of what I refer to as the "DragonForce Effect". So don't you think it's time you invest in that "Extreme Unction" hoodie?

*Highlights*
"Foul Body Autopsy", "Culinary Hyperversity", "Fermented Offal Discharge", "Mutilate the Stillborn".

The epitome of technical death metal. - 100%

BrutalAnnihilation69, February 12th, 2008

For those who have been living under a rock for the past few years and have not heard of Necrophagist (one who feeds from the dead) they are a technical progressive death metal band who hail from Germany and in my opinion are one of the most technically gifted bands in this genre. But forget the band name for a moment as this masterpiece was envisioned and created by a single man (mortal or not you be the judge) Muhammed Suiçmez.


This album Onset of Putrification is a well structured album that flows without a glitch through the use of strange time signatures which are used throughout this album to great affect and keeps the listener guessing as to what is to come next, whether it be a blazing guitar solo, catchy melodies, small bass solo or a slow paced section you are kept on the edge of your seat through out this entire listen. Evident in this album are Muhammed’s neo-classical and classical influences which contribute to these rapid and technical compositions.


The production quality on this album is excellent and one of the many highlights of this album are the vocals while being so brutal and guttural Muhammed somehow manages to also make them fairly audible to the seasoned metal head which is rare in a high percentage of extreme metal these days. The genius song titles and brutal yet intelligent lyrics are of the highest caliber and meld into the music very well. When I first heard this album one of the things that hit me straight away were the complex yet melodic solos. Some of the best examples of this are shown in “the hymn for an angel” solo in Advanced Corpse Tumor and my personal favorite the awe inspiring solo featured in Fermented Offal Discharge.


For those of you out there who are turned off by extreme technicality as it sometimes becomes to much be sure to check out this album as it is pieced together perfectly and paired with the fast paced technicality of this album there are also some slower sections to the songs which fit in very nicely.


The highlights of this album are the amazing guitar work, solos and catchy melodies and the overall technicality and brutality which is achieved. This album is a must have for any true extreme metal head even if this is not your preferred genre of metal this is a must have for any collection.


Stand out tracks:

*Fermented Offal Discharge
*Culinary Hyperversity
*Foul Body Autopsy


Conclusion: A True Masterpiece.

One man's brutal masterpiece. - 100%

kilder, November 2nd, 2007

This album is the perfect example of the genre. The amazing technique, the harsh vocals, the insane solos and the overall mood makes this album incredible.

Like someone has written in one of the reviews before me, after listening to this band it was pretty hard to listen to other bands in the genre because they don’t seem to satisfy the listener after hearing such a well-written and planned master of death metal.

Every track on the album is an example of a good combination of great technical skills, good song writing and brutality. What's even more surprising is that this formula doesn't get old. Every song is unique despite the fact all of them follow the same patterns. This I wasn't expecting from an album of this genre.

From the amazing opener - ‘Foul Body Autopsy’, one of the most aggressive and brutal songs in the album, to the closing ‘Fermented Offal Discharge’, the album is simply perfect. While using both technical, fast solos and slower more melodic ones, the album manages to stay balanced. Not one song can be labeled either too noisy or too melodic.
No unneeded solos or riffs, no songs which are too long – the album makes the most out of every second. Every note is heard and fits perfectly in each of the masterpieces on this album. The album, although categorized as technical death metal never gets too technical. There are a lot of slow passages that fit well in each song. This makes each track more than the ‘average technical insane death metal song’

The use of odd time signatures in these speeds is mind-blowing. It gives a unique touch and a lasting impression for the good listeners and technical drummers.

The lyrics, usually not understandable without the words in front of you are very good.

In conclusion: if you like fast brutal death metal – gets this album.
If you are not so familiar with the genre and want to get a good example – get this album.

Orgasmic Technicality Ensues! - 88%

NeverEndingNosebleed, September 25th, 2007

First off, let me just say something; this album is fucking TECHNICAL!!! Muhammed Suiçmez is one beast of a guitarist, and the fact that he recorded this album alone makes it even more impressive. This is brutal technical death metal at its finest; from the opening growl and riff of "Foul Body Autopsy" you know you're in for one hell of a ride.

Being one of the first truly technical albums that I listened to, I couldn't help but marvel at the sheer technicality of the guitars! While listening for the first time, I kept saying things to myself like "Holy shit!" and "How the fuck..." Seriously, not only are the riffs kickass from start to finish, but they are just so technical. Muhammed also can rip some absolutely nasty solos (Fermented Offal Discharge, anyone?) The solos are actually probably my most favored thing about this album, which is why a lot of the times I skip the first three tracks, which seem to lack solos, and start at "Intestinal Incubation," where from then on out the solos are ablaze. The bass is mixed in there, usually following the guitar riffs, which is a disappointment, as Muhammed seems to be a very good bassist. It would have been nice to see some bass solos here and there.

The CD has very good production; everything mixes in well, with no complaints about any of the instruments' sounds whatsoever.

The vocals aren't that special here; just your average cookie monster death metal vocals. No shrieks or screams here, but the vocals don't get boring, as they fit the brutality of the music very well.

Overall, this is a kickass technical death metal album. If you're a fan of brutal death metal or technical metal, I highly recommend this album.

Now this is how you make technical death metal. - 96%

t_, July 30th, 2006

WHOA! Never before has an album shocked me through sheer technicality, but Necrophagist’s ‘Onset of Putrefaction’ has done just that. This album has to be heard to be believed.

Necrophagist, basically meaning ‘one who feeds from the dead’, is a brutal technical death metal outfit based in Germany. The only member is Muhammed Suiçmez; yes, that means that all instruments and vocals are performed by the almighty Suiçmez. This is an amazing feat in itself, as the genre of this album is brutal technical death metal - and trust me, it is REALLY technical. This album is renowned mainly for it’s technicality, but besides that, there is also the blazingly fast speed of the music and catchy melodies involved.

Changes of time signatures in the album are rife. Suiçmez will keep you guessing on what he’s going to do next, but most likely you’re going to guess incorrectly. The vocals are deep and guttural and possess an extreme degree of vocal strength and resonance that takes the potency of the album to a whole new level.

If you thought that Muhammed Suiçmez would decide to play the guitar only adequately since he is doing all the work on this album, then think again. Suiçmez is practically unequalled and has to be one of the greatest guitar players on earth at this moment in time - just listen to his astounding guitar solos throughout the album and try to tell me otherwise. His ‘shredding’ neoclassical-influenced guitar style fits the style of music surprisingly well.

‘Fermented Offal Discharge’ is a downright awesome song and has probably my favourite guitar solo of all time in it. If any idiot claims that death metal takes no talent, get them to listen to this solo and I guarantee they’ll sit the fuck down. This is probably the most memorable part of the album and fittingly brings it to a close, enticing the listener to give the album another shot.

The only downside of the album is the use of programmed drums. Muhammed Suiçmez had his drummer leave the band just before the recording of the album, so he opted to do the drumming himself through programming. Although he does a great job and makes the drums flawlessly timed, after a while they tend to sound a bit too unrealistic.

It is because of this album that technicality from any other band fails to impress me anymore. I could go on all day about how great Muhammed Suiçmez is but there is a better solution for everyone reading this review: pick up this album right now and you shall be spared from all this Suiçmez ass-kissing that I’m doing. Anyone who says this album is full of pointless wankery deserves to be kicked in the nuts; every riff, every solo, every note adds that extra bit to the overall feel of the album. Any fan of technical death metal (such as Cryptopsy, Yattering, Martyr (Canada)) that isn’t afraid to hear the genre taken to a whole new level of brutality and technicality will love this album. I will close this review by saying PRAISE NECROPHAGIST (or more specifically, Muhammed Suiçmez)!

Talent does NOT always mean Perfection! - 80%

Alterno, October 24th, 2005

The Album kicks in with the short -less than 2 minutes- "Foul Body Autopsy" with a great echoing growl giving a good impression for the album, followed by "To Breathe In A Casket" in a great epicness, On the third track "Mutilate the Stillborn" after passing the first minute you will begin to find it less interesting, then the album goes the same (attractive beginning for each track followed by repetitive VideoGame-riffs including fine moments and solos every now and then during each track).

This form of technical death metal used in Onset of Putrefaction is very over-used making its music lose luster and getting meaningless in some parts as well. The lead guitar lines are very repetitive with the same Malmsteenic sounds leading to boredom while listening, So I think technicality here failed to achieve its aim with the Brutal Death Metal. The music is based on being for the true Death Metallers having complex riffs that are hard to be absorbed for the non strong fans, Highly technical and played with talent.
The fast drum lines work with the album (as-fast-as-you-can blast beats and other odd-time drumming and fills).
The lyrics are ok and the production is very good to be audible but not so cold as the music.
When I listened to this album over and over I noticed that it lacks memorability due to its complexity and weird timings, but it still competes by being a unique meal for DM fans.

*Highlights (Reasons for giving a high rating):
-The vocals are the most perfect thing about that album, from the best brutal death growls I've ever heard; Strong and low-pitched.
-The bass lines appear worthy on the last three tracks.
-Perfect Odd timings.
-The intro track and the very nice fitting solos.
-The long and fraction-of-a-second echo effects for the vocals are very well used.

**The 2004 re-release of the album contains two bonus tracks (Dismembered Self-Immolation, Pseudopathological Vivisection) from the first Necrophagist's demo which are thrashy, less technical and more simple.

***Recommended tracks:
1-Foul Body Autopsy
2- Advanced Corpse Tumor (May be the most interesting and varying track)
3- Extreme Unction
4- Fermented Offal Discharge

Exploding With Talent - 100%

MutatisMutandis, August 20th, 2005

There are good releases, great releases, and every once in a while, there are skull-splitting, brain-liquefying, and spleen-rupturing releases that make you wanna start a polytheistic religion around it, with each song taking the position of a different god. If this band thought it’d be funny for you to get debilitatingly large breast implants, regardless of sex or age, you’d march down to the nearest plastic surgeon and tell them to get out the big guns. I can honestly say I’m not too happy with my new man-jugs, as they’ve stretched out my Carcass long-sleeve to ridiculous proportions, but it does let people the people “in the know” understand how many thousand tons of ass this album kicks. Necrophagist may not be a one man band, but it may as well be. The bands brain does just about everything except a few bass lines... I think. I don’t really remember. I know I read something like that somewhere sometime, but it doesn’t really matter anyway. This guy is exploding with enough talent to put 70% of the metal scene to complete shame. About 10 minutes into this, my mouth cracked open, and the amounts of saliva I produced may very well have drowned third world countries. The technicality and beauty of this man’s work is so far beyond any of the more popular tech death bands, I can’t help but wonder what’s wrong with this community. Well, aside the fact that half of it are the products of anal birth and have IQ’s akin to this dead squirrel I found today at work. There are plenty of start-stop riffs, chunky speed changes, and moments that refresh my love of the genre like few other albums have ever done. The somewhat minimal vocal use fits perfectly into the style, and really allows the listener to absorb every riff in and out (if you didn’t already know, the vocals used are similar to newer Morbid Angel and Immolation, except slightly raspier). Before I begin my religious speech, I should wrap this up. If you love, or even enjoy slightly, death or technical death metal, pick this up anyway possible.

Almost awesome - 75%

hermanator05, May 29th, 2005

Yes, this band has is technical as fuck, there's solos all over the place and it's suprisingly catchy. The band is instantly accessible, and if you dig it when you first hear it, chances are you will continue to enjoy it down the road. So what's wrong with it?

The glaring flaw on this album was touched upon in previous reviews: it's too damn cold and mechanical sounding. Don't get me wrong. This isn't wank at all as far as I'm concerned; lots of parts on this album are certainly memorable and while technicality is probably the most renowned characteristic of this band, there's nothing here that would qualify this band as the Dream Theater of death metal. No tripe to found here at all, really. There's even some quality headbanging to be found on this album on tracks like "Mutilate the Stillborn" and "To Breathe in a Casket". There is just a dissapointing lack of emotion to be found throughout most of the album. But as I said it isn't wank, because in the absence of emotion lies musical substance and some rather solid death metal, even if I normally decline death metal of this ilk for the down and dirty stuff. However, the objective here was to create a technical death album like no other, and in many ways, they succeeded. If you want technicality mixed with passion, there are definitely more brutal and effective options, such as Suffocation and Origin. As it stands right now, though, this album is interesting and at times jaw dropping enough to justify its existence in an unfortunately quite stagnated genre.

deedly doodly diddly,,, - 71%

Cheeses_Priced, August 31st, 2004

Necrophagist is a one-man band (on this album, and it’s not noticeable) that plays technical brutal death metal with explicitly neoclassical lead guitar technique - you know, “shredding”.

The resulting music is quite distinctive from any other death metal band I can name. The vocals are guttural, song titles (and presumably lyrics) are gore-inspired, blast beats are omnipresent, and complicated, Suffocation-style guitar rhythms reign, but in contrast, the band’s overall approach is very clean, almost sterile. If an ordinary brutal death metal sounds “sick”, one might say this sounds downright “well”. The production is very clear, carefully isolating each individual instrument, and the guitars emphasize precise, fast picking and neoclassical flourishes over the tremolo, dissonance and odd squeals one would ordinarily expect from death metal. The solos, as I alluded to above, are the best examples of the difference: they are about as dissimilar to the playing of a Trey Azagthoth or a Robert Vigna as they could possibly be. The bass (which is audible!) follows suit. This fellow is one hell of a musician, by the way: this really is ruthlessly technical music, and very rigid-feeling as opposed what jazz-influenced technical death metal bands come up with. Drums are programmed, but surprisingly, this detracts nothing from the music. It sounds just like a skilled death metal drummer playing on a triggered set without overstepping his bounds, as a matter of fact… it’s maybe a tad on the mechanical side, but it fits in with everything else.

To me, though, that’s sort of the downside of this album. The bizarre, demented feeling or distorted sense of reality that other death metal bands convey with their oddball playing is a bit lost in Necrophagia’s almost robotic style. This is not a boring album by any means, but it does feel a little empty... it's fun getting beaten dizzy by the flashy guitar, but I find that the wow factor tends to wear off a bit after a while. Well, I suppose a bit of musical masturbation from time to time can relieve tension.

Technical Death Just Doesn't Get Better Than This. - 100%

Morteizen, March 30th, 2004

This CD reigns supreme in Technical Death, in my opinion this is one of the greatest death metal CDs ever release. This guy Muhammed Suicmez is just a technical fucking genius and a madman when he plays. Necrophagist is highly aware of composition and contrast and nows how to show they now what they're fucking doing. Not only is everything perfect on this album (even the drum machine is perfect) but it never gets old. You can listen to this CD non-stop and never get bored of it.

The CD starts out with Foul Body Autopsy which excercises some awesome fucking riffs. It's sharp and precise, being beautiful and brutal at the same time. The only problem here is that this song is so short. The next song To Breath in a Casket I feel has the most memorable (audible) lyrics on the album ("Oh..Beyond, Beyond these walls, there lies, infinity...To breathe in a casket, six feet below").

Mutilate the Stillborn is one of the best tracks on this CD, every riff in this song is the highest quality. These guys aren't fucking around. The riff in seconds 17-21 is blazingly fast and impressive. Great riffs, awesome song.

Intestinal Incubation is an equally impressive song with an awesome solo on it starting at 1:53, blazing accurate, words can't describe these guys.

Culinary Hyperversity has an awesome beginning riff, this is a great song. Every fucking track on this CD is impeccable and accurate. The break at 2:23 is just fucking awesome, and then it just breaks into another awesome solo.

Advanced Corpse Tumor is another song with just a fucking awesome solo. It's a little short, but you get what they give you and I'm not complaining. When I mean solo on this album, I don't mean sloppy shit like Slayer and Morbid Angel, I'm talking about sheer technicality and accuracy.

Extreme Unction is a good song, but I feel it's kind of a break song, still a good break song though. Good solo at 2:07 but now onto Fermented Offal Discharge. I would have to say this would have to be the best song on this CD. Great riff at 2:03, headbang material indeed. But it's definitely the solo at 3:01 that makes this song great. Just great.

You can listen to some free songs at www.Necrophagist.de, but if you don't love this CD then you shouldn't call yourself a metalhead. It doesn't matter if you like progressive, black or death, everyone will love this CD. Go get it fuckers.